I can't help it. It's probably the only real, current bandwagon I'll jump onto, but I played for the first time in Charlotte, North Carolina. We played the Olympics one. We played the table tennis event. In real life I'd never be as good at ping-pong as I am on Wii. I was winning 10 to 5, one more point to take the game. And then what happened? I choked. I lost. It was Olympics drama at its best.

I want that feeling back. I've lost that Wii-ing feeling, people, and now it's gone, gone, gone. Whoa, whoa, oh.  I've been searching different stores online for prices and availability, and I really can't afford a Wii right now, and I would hate to go into debt to get one. So, this is a petition, dear Internet. Please get me a Wii. I know you wouldn't want me to charge it on a credit card, and I know you'd want me to take the gold medal from my formidable opponent. In the spirit of the Olympics, and because you love me, would you please, please, please get me a Wii. I'm sure it would also help me finish my degree and improve my writing, as well as my coordination and dexterity.

VH1's 100 Top Songs of the 80s is on. Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time" just played. That takes me back to slumber parties with one of my best friends in Key West, Kathy Bruening. I was 9, she was 10. We'd turn on Cyndi up to full-blast and keep the night lights on for effect and hold our hairbrush microphones and stand on the bed and lip sync with such passion and sass for our adoring fans.

Sometimes I think I could still do that. I think I still do that. It's embarrassing and should be outlawed and enforced immediately. That's why I need a Wii.

F: Hello?
M: Hello? 
F: ...
M: Hello? Frank?
F: Hello?
M: Hey.
F: I missed my ear.
M: You missed your ear?
F: Yeah, I'm wearing a headset, and I missed my ear.
M: Oh. So, what have you been up to?
F: Just working a lot.
M: You've been busy.
F: Yeah.
M: So, I've been making a list of all the R-rated horror movies we saw when we were kids.
F: Why?
M: Just because. I want to see if you can remember any others. I have Nightmare on Elm Street. Friday the 13th. The Howling. The Omen. And The Exorcist. What else?
F: Hmm, I didn't see Child's Play until I was older.
M: How about vampire movies?
F: Not until I was older.
M: How about the Chuckie movies?
F: That was Child's Play.
M: Oh. How about Misery?
F: We saw that on television.
M: How about The Good Son?
F: That wasn't really horror. Just scary.
M: I was scared of MacCaulay Culkin.
M: [thinking of a scene where something comes out of a toilet]
F: We saw Ghoulies.
M: Wait, is that where that thing comes out of the toilet?
F: Ha! Yeah. And then there was green splatter on the wall. And there was this couple that was kissing that got their mouths stuck together because they both wore braces. I thought, "Oh man! That would be the worst."
M: I remember that kissing scene. What about those Halloween movies with that Mike Myers character. I fell asleep during one of them. 
F: That's right. 
M: What about Children of the Corn?
F: I thought I was older.
M: It was on HBO. There was Malachi.
F: Malachi!
M: And that fire or whatever it was chasing them through the cornfields. So scary. Did we see all the Friday the 13ths?
F: One through six.
M: Really? What about Nightmare on Elm Street? Four? Five?
F: The first three.
M: Oh. Oops.
F: At the end of The Exorcist, I thought that the priest was Joseph Smith. It looked like him. I thought it was strange.
M: [trying not to laugh too loudly] Ha! That's too funny!
F: [static on the line]
M: Hey.
F: [khook ...khook]
M: Frank?
F: [khook ...] Yeah?
M: You're breaking up. All I hear are strange syllables, and I don't understand you.
F: That's how I talk now.
M: Heh. Hey, I'll call you later when the line's clearer and when you're not at work.
F: Okay.
M: Okay, I'll talk to you soon.
F: Okay. Bye.
M: Bye.

Today I started making a list of all the R-rated movies I have ever seen. For some reason I listed the horror movies first, then my thoughts turned to how many of those movies Frank and I saw when we were kids. I love trying to remember things with him. Sometimes our memories hold similar forms; other times I have to wonder if we were actually in the same room when a particular event took place. Another part of that conversation was my asking him if he remembered us renting Point Break and watching it AFTER CHURCH. This was when the call was breaking up, but I could tell he was doing a Keanu Reeves impression. You do not want to miss Frank with his Keanu Reeves impression.

Those movies transfixed us. I was between 9 and 14 years old for those horror flicks, making Frank between 3 and 8. We spent a lot of time together with all sorts of movies. When it was bedtime we'd lie on my bed, staring up into the fuzzy darkness and play games of who could name the most models of cars, or the most animals. The most whatever. I remember letting him name more sometimes. We played together a lot. We'd have farting contests just with each other, but I have to say that kind of thing wasn't exactly discouraged within my family. Sure it was inappropriate in front of other people, but it was perfectly acceptable in our home. Just the other day on the phone I told my mom that I farted. And she told me to do it again. By "the other day," I mean yesterday. This is not a childhood memory. 

So families find different ways to bond. The way some siblings' relationships form is sometimes a mystery. Those movies probably weren't the best or most wholesome medium, but the time we spent together I would not trade or take back for anything. That time is what makes me miss my little brother, and that time is why we can relive memories and build upon them. The conversations we have now are merely extensions of our talks as kids. They'll keep extending, and they'll naturally never end. I couldn't imagine if they did. Now that would be the worst.

Well. Here's part of an email I sent to a friend today:

Right now, I'm looking out my window.  The streets are wet.  That layer of moisture reflects the backlights of the cars, creating the illusion of twice as much red light. It's pretty cool.

Running in this neighborhood is always interesting; the streets are almost never empty.  This time of year, it's chaos.  I admit I get sucked into admiring the decorated windows of Lord & Taylor and Cartier and the shops at Rockefeller Center, and the Apple Store.  It's not like I have the money to spend at those places, but I'm grateful I'm running past these places when I see them.

My mind leapt back to high school yesterday.  It was a strange sensation, and it occurred only after I noticed I did something that I learned on the football field during marching band.  The foot traffic on the subway platforms is seldom organized.  Sometimes there's a steady flow toward the trains and you can catch the current, but often, I find myself weaving through the crowds.  People cut right in front of me, and I either have to stop or change direction quickly.  If I stop, I risk people behind me running me over, so I prefer to change direction: a sudden swerve then back on track or take the path I shifted to.  Yesterday, I caught myself doing a skip-step.  Or maybe it's called  a stutter-step.  It's what you do if you're marching and out of step with the music and rest of the band, which is often on the wrong foot of the beat.  Instead of putting the opposite foot forward, you settle back on the rear foot and hop, so you end up stepping with your forward foot twice.  It puts the correct foot on the proper beat.  For me in the subway station, it delayed or hastened my step by a beat so people could pass in front of or behind me without any collisions.  Not that anyone else cared, but I was on the field in my mind's eye, and I resisted the temptation to glide-step the rest of the way to the A train.  I wasn't playing my clarinet, after all.  But I was smugly smiling, and a time that would have normally been high-stress and filled my mind with unfriendly thoughts turned into a nice trip down memory lane.  Yay, commute!

I happened upon this site today.  I want to nominate one (some?) of you for any of the categories.  

My abs are sore.  Woo-hoo! 

Here's a pretty funny video about the strike.  Oh, and if you're not already getting updates on negotiations (or lack thereof) between the WGA and the AMPTP, check them out here and here.  Check the entire site.  Lots of great stuff: videos, resources, picketing information.

I was gonna go to Institute, but I think I'll stay home instead. 

Jacksonville was already big. It still holds the title of the largest-area city. It's growing, though. Subdivisions popping up; developments being torn down, and others replacing them. Crime is pretty high yet, but it's cleaning up, gradually.

On the west side of the St. Johns River, the town immediately south of Jacksonville is Orange Park. True suburb. You can tell by the commuter traffic. As I drove down its main route, Blanding Boulevard, I noticed new buildings, new houses, fewer trees, but more bike paths.

There is a "shortcut" from the west side of Jacksonville into Middleburg, nearly bypassing Orange Park altogether. Highway 23. It's Chaffee Road in Duval County and becomes Branan Field Road entering Clay County. A brand-new, run-of-the-mill national supercenter is on this road between Old Jennings Road and Blanding Boulevard. Can I just say I didn't even walk into one during my visit? They litter the South, but shopping there didn't even cross my mind.

I attended a baby shower in Middleburg last Saturday. I took Chaffee Road/Branan Field to Blanding Boulevard. I headed south on Blanding into that old, unincorporated little town. A few little new shopping plazas, but when I turned west onto State Road 218, not too much had changed at all. The drive-thru dairy store at Cinnamon Street is now a liquor store. Names of convenience stores have changed, probably as management switches hands. Still, it was all familiar

Mimosa Avenue has a traffic light at SR 218. I was tempted to turn north to Johns Cemetery Road, then left to good ol' Plankton Avenue, where I'd follow three turns on that dirt road to plot 122, where I lived from ages 10-17. I only made those turns in my mind, where everything looks the same. My German Shepard, Sam; our little potbelly pig, Pinky; our white cat, Cleo; and our puggy pug, Sparky.

I passed my old junior high school. I noticed quite a few of the side roads hadn't been paved. Old businesses still running, with newer signs and fresh coats of paint. Memories flooded me. The bus ride from elementary school was about 45 minutes long, and so I'd try to finish my math homework on the bus before my stop. The smell of the chicken farm near the school. Those ridiculous orange sash-belts the safety patrol wore.

Nearly missed my turn, for the mondo gas station that used to be itty-bitty. I turned into the gas station and drove to the other side of the parking lot onto Mallard Road. Then onto my friend's road, where the baby shower was. As if the nostalgia fairy cast a spell on me, I saw four friends I've had since elementary school. Three of them are pregnant, but it wasn't a triple shower. We exchanged a few memories, we laughed a lot. Dadgum, nobody's really changed. I had a marvelous time. As I left, I told them that we'd meet at the Clay Hill [Elementary School] playground. As if we were 11 again.

What was cool was I'd only heard about the shower two days before, and my day happened to open up for me to attend. What was also cool is I didn't really want to leave the shower. I wanted to sit and carry on and catch up and do everything that old friends do. I sure do love those girls.

Alas, I left. Back onto Mallard, then SR 218, then Blanding Boulevard, then Branan Field/Chaffee Road. The further I got from the heart of Middleburg, the more I felt extracted from my childhood, those memories, when life was simpler and had its own lingering sweetness. Yanked right back into reality.

So, yes, Orange Park is turning into a giant concrete slab. And while my hometown has a few newnesses, I'm grateful someone thought to leave Middleburg well enough alone.

I'm grateful to leave those thoughts of my Middleburg alone ...