May 30, 2003 05:27 PM

OK, I think I'm regressing to fifth grade.

Exhibit One: I wanted to get a watch. Just a cheap-ass digital. 'Cause I have a decent watch, but it doesn't fit me, and even if it did, I wouldn't want to wear it every day because I've totally busted every decent watch I've ever owned. Like, into multiple pieces.

In the back of my mind, I remembered the cool Casio calculator watch I had in fifth grade. It was totally the most awesome gadget anyone had ever seen in either my elementary school class or my Boy Scout troop. Before anyone under fifteen had cell phones, PDA's, Discmen, or laptops, I had a "hi-tech" water resistant Casio calculator watch, with 12 big chrome numerical buttons, dual-time, a stopwatch, and an alarm.

And a game.

The game was key. It was nothing really . . . just a low-tech version of Tetris. A row of numbers would gradually crawl across the watch display, and each individual number would disappear if you punched the correct calculator button in time. The numbers would appear faster and faster as the game progressed, and if the row of numbers actually reached the far edge of the display, it was GAME OVER for you.

Remember, this was the early eighties. No one had even imagined a Gameboy yet. So to be able to pull out my watch and play an electronic game while, say, canoeing on the Russian River with the Scouts, or ambling around Golden Gate Park on a school field trip . . . well, that was considered nothing short of miraculous.

Many of the guys were jealous.

The girls didn't really care.

So last weekend I had, like, fifteen minutes between activities, and I walked by a Walgreens and thought, hmm . . . maybe I can get a cheap-ass watch there . . .

I walked in, found the watch case, and . . . SHAZAM! . . . they had the VERY SAME Casio calculator watch I had as a fifth grader.

Well, almost the same. They make the calculator buttons out of black plastic now, not chrome. And it doesn't have the game. I guess they figured people would just laugh at it these days.

I can't explain it, but this watch makes me downright euphoric. It makes me happier than anything I've bought in a long time. It's so frivolous and uncool and nostalgic and so very ME. It's like I'm re-united with a part of myself.

And if people piss me off, I can pretend that it's an intergalactic communicator, and I can use it to call the mother ship to strike my enemies down. Just like I did in fifth grade.

I do miss the game, though.

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May 20, 2003 10:24 PM

So I was just doing dishes . . . which, um, haven't been done in a while, 'cause, you know, I've had things to do. And I commented to my husband, "Man, some of these dishes . . . I feel like I'm in the Sea of Corruption. Surrounded by the Miasma."

"Don't breathe in the spores!!" he suggested.

OK, I don't expect too many people to get that. But it was really funny at the time.

See, we've both been reading Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, the manga by Hayao Miyazaki.

Our video store has the movie version, but only in Japanese without subtitles. So we're reading the manga first so that we'll know what's happening when we see the movie.

I'm worried, though . . . Nausicaa may end up toppling Lord of the Rings from it's lifelong designation in my mind as the Best Story Ever.

It's that good.

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May 9, 2003 11:50 PM

I have to say, one of my favorite parts of the aftermath of my party is the writing it has inspired . . .

There's Chey's poetic account (with photos!) . . .

Angelina's rockin' recap . . .

Jhames' series, starting here . . .

And this poem, which I found in one of my birthday cards . . .

Bloggers, psychics, actors, geeks . . .

If they're friends of yours, they have adorable cheeks (ass, that is).

Leopard clad and as hot as J-Lo,

When I think of you, my *pink taco* wants to blow.

Calendars suggest you're just thirty-two,

But through boundaries of time and space you flew.

You're brilliant, insightful, kind and sexy

Even though your room is always messy.

We love every element that makes you unique,

But that doesn't change the fact that you're a big, fat FREAK!!

We love you,

Kristar and Estar

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