I almost forgot to mention my dive Thursday.. (et cetera) Matt, Alex, Manny & I went diving on Thursday night. I think that was dive #37.

A couple of things worth noting are that I scared a sea turtle away before I even noticed it. Matt pointed to it, I looked down, and next thing I know, it's bolting away. Later, I saw one sleeping and sank down to take a look at it. I am never satisified until I see a face, so it took some wiggling, but I got what I wanted. And even though its flipper was easily within grasp, I didn't touch it. Alex had better be proud.

One very cool thing that happened was that I saw a parrotfish sleeping in his little sleep bubble. A neat thing in all itself, but even more special in a personal way.

Years ago, my friend (Mike Souza for those of you who've been around that long) wrote to me. I guess I was sad about something or other. He said, "Don't be sad, Stacey. Just think of the parrotfish, sleeping away in a bubble made of mucous." Or something like that. And then attached a link to a story about sleeping parrotfish. It was the first time I had heard of such a thing. So, of course, I really can't be sad now; I saw one in person. :)

OTHER STUFF

Saturday night, I went to a


(These were the shirts we wore.)

And stayed out way too late.


Hey, you could still see the moon!

I went with my old buds, Steph and Sarah. I missed them so much! Steph is like another big sister - she's actually quite tiny, but wise and sweet and encouraging and all that great stuff. Sarah is adorable and it was so fun to see her in action again. "Don't hate!"

We went to La Bare, a male strip club, and then out at the Seminole Hard Rock Casino, where I did not gamble because, unlike all the other times I was there, I didn't have two guys named Ed slipping me $20 bills.

I had never been to a strip club, so that was.. weird. Now, I'm not a conservative girl, by any means, but, you know, I'm not used to seeing nearly naked men.. doing.. that.. stuff. At one point, I looked over and the guy dancing by the wall was pulling his silky little drawers down and nearly showing, you know, IT. I swear to god, I meeped! out loud and covered my eyes.

What's funny is that they all have BIG HUGE THINGS in their pants, but, of course, they're fake. The funny part is that whatever is in there is made to look real. You see outlines of what appears to be a foot-long fella inside the silky g-strings. I kinda think that's unfair.

I couldn't bring my camera in, so missed many great photo opportunities. I had captions thought up already: all 20 or so pictures would've been captioned, "This man loves his job." Except the tiny Mexican guy. The poor thing got, like, two $1 bills the whole time he was onstage. I felt bad for him until I remembered that he was the one who put himself up there.

All in all, pretty silly and not sexual at all, unlike what I would imagine women's strip clubs are like. Every once in a while, though, some stud of a man would do something with his hips that would make me furrow my brow, bite my thumbnail, and rethink this whole man-less existence of mine.

Then at Seminole, we watched people ride the mechanical bull. As the bull operator was a guy, most of the ride time was taken up by women and their bouncy cleavage; he'd kick the guys off right away. But a couple of the men were really good at it. You know where I'm going with this? If not, please re-read my last paragraph. :)  ¶ 2:05 PM