On Monday, I met my friend Jeremy at his house in St. Pete so we could ride together to Port Charlotte for an event we were doing together. Jeremy is an account executive for Elizabeth Arden cosmetics and he's been so kind as to book me to work for a bunch of fun events with them through the end of the year. We met several years ago when I started working for Lancome at Elder Beerman and he was the Arden AE for that region and we hit it off instantly. Then, almost two years ago exactly, he moved down here. So one of the HUGE bonuses of living down here is already having one very dear friend close by.
Anywho, two other artists (Sonja and Jose, who are both completely fabulous) met up with us also and we all headed to Port Charlotte. After running by the store to do a little bit of setup, we all went to Olive Garden. That's actually a difficult place to eat for a vegan. I realize you can get pasta with marinara sauce and whatnot, but I really truly craved something rich and creamy so I gave into my desires for once and sinned against the poor milking cows and ordered the Four Cheese Sachetti (with no chicken or shrimp or anything). I admit, it was amazing, but it bothered my tummy a little bit. So I drank a few glasses of wine and had a Venetian Sunset (which has pineapple and cherry juices mixed with champagne) to help me ignore it (that worked).
That's what the Four Cheese Sachetti looks like with shrimp.
On Friday night, I went out to dinner in Tampa for my 24th birthday with Jeremy, his boyfriend Emilio, and Jose, the makeup artist/Prevage skincare specialist I mentioned earlier. During our roadtrip to Port Charlotte, we'd all talked about food and pizza and whatnot and I mentioned how much I love and miss Giordano's in Chicago (they make that really amazing thick-crust pizza). Well lo and behold, there's a Giordano's in Tampa!! Jose and I immediately began making plans to go there for my birthday. It was amazing. We ordered an appetizer of fried mozzarella sticks and fried zucchini (which is one of my favorites) and we had a big deep-dish Chicago-style cheese pizza. So two nights last week, I ate some cheese. So sue me. I'm not perfect. I've been really, really good for like, four months now so I don't feel horribly guilty but it's definitely not something I'll be making a habit of.
This is the appetizer with fried mushrooms, too, but we had them just give us extra zucchini intead.
Real Chicago-style pizza, right here in Florida. Who would have thought?
After dinner, Jeremy and Emilio took me to a part of Tampa I've never been to before, Ybor City. Durb says it's a lot like 4th Avenue in Huntington where people get shot and stabbed all the time, but isn't that a part of almost every single club scene? To me, it was like the strip at Myrtle Beach but nicer times 280284028402. Lots of people out walking everywhere, amazing bars and clubs, cute restaurants, and neat little shops all over the place. We went to Hamburger Mary's, which is also in Chicago as well, for a Pretty in Pink drink. It's kind of like a Long Island in how it has a mix of everything in it, but it tastes delicious and has a pretty hot pink color. Hamburger Mary's has a full menu of amazing food (including fried Twinkies that I had last time I visited Chicago). On Fridays and Saturdays, they also do incredible drag shows. Their motto is: "Eat, drink, and be Mary!" It's a really fun place to relax, have some good food an drinks, dance a little, and see a good show. I'll be going there a lot now that I know we have one down here.
Mary gretting her patrons at the entrance of Hamburger Mary's. She's one hot betch!
After that, we headed to Honeypot, which is an amazing gay nightclub. I'm no gay myself as I'm sure you know, but I am notorious for being a fag hag and I have an incredible appreciation for the artistry it takes to become a drag queen. How else do you think I learned how to do makeup as well as I do? Anyway, the first performer of the night was dressed up like Reba (who obviously needs no last name) and she performed "Fancy." Well, apparently people in Florida aren't as huge Reba fans as we are back home because Jeremy and I were the only ones screaming the words at the top of our lungs during her performance. We LOVED her!
This is the back wall of the bar in Honeypot. All those square cubicles light up to the music, it looks so cool!
We hung out there for the rest of the drag show and stayed to dance it up some and let me tell you, Jeremy is one hell of a dancer. We were all hot and sweaty and covered in spilled drinks by the time we left but we had a BLAST. It was truly an amazing birthday, considering I wasn't expecting to do much or even begin to enjoy myself considering I'm alone in Florida with only one really close friend down here.
So that's it for now, and I still swear I'm going to put up some pictures of stuff ASAP!
