Living is South Florida has taught me this: If you want to feel really crappy about yourself and guilt yourself into a starvation diet, you should simply go to South Beach, but if you wanna feel like Giselle, go to a water park.

Look, the beaches here are filled with hot, svelte, uber-tan, scantily clad, could-be models who do things you would normally see in cheesy 80s spring break movies or the making of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition, like whip their hair out of the water in a single choreographed move in slow motion.

For this reason, I always have a cover-up no more than an arm’s distance away as I sit under an umbrella and wonder, “When did I stop being that young, hot, frolicy, slow-motion girl? Wait, was I ever her? Shit, I don’t know if I was ever her, and now I’ll never be her again or for the first time…”

This is why I rarely go to the beach. Buuuuuut, I’ve also learned that to combat this feeling, one does not need to spend Thanksgiving or Christmas break in an Alaska-esque climate where she can bundle up and hide under a trendy puffer jacket.

Nope, one simply needs to take herself and her beach attire to a water park. Though water parks and beaches seem similar on the surface, they’re at their core polar opposites, like Walmart and Target.

Frankly, any park will do because here is a water park truth: No matter how much cellulite, varicose veins, stretch marks, regrettable tattoos or unsightly moles you have, there is someone within a 10-foot radius of you who has more… and she is wearing a bikini.

…a string bikini.

…a string bikini that Continue reading →