Is there anything that you wish you still had?

My Alfred E. Neuman "What Me Worry," t-shirt that I bought at 17. Me and 3 classmates had won a New England wide high school video contest. My share of the prize money came to $150. My mom made me put half in the bank and let me spend the rest. The Neuman shirt was among the items I bought. I wore it threadbare till mom threw it out, the unfeeling matriarch. My beloved MC5 and Mort Drucker Anthrax shirts have disappered but I think they just ran away to join the circus or something.

Also, me and my lesbian ex girlfriend* first bonded over music and exchanging mixtapes. She made me one great one where she drew a picture of the comic character Buddy Bradley on the cover (I still have the cover but I lost the tape. I've managed to p2p most of the songs from it, except I can't find "Barbie & the Rockers," by Bad Dream House, "Baby Ran Away," by the Wussies, and "Pearls At Swine," by the Lovedolls. *sniff*

*for you wiseasses: I knew she was gay. She made an exception for me.

A carved piece of wood that my grandfather made for me when I was a kid. It was the letter "A", my initial, and at the time I thought it was kind of hokey. I don't know what happened to it, and it kills me that I cared so little about it.

I was talking to jonmc downstairs about this thread and how I had nothing that I missed...

...and then I remembered my lucky leopard-print cowboy hat. It's the hat I'd wear while traveling and it was my good luck charm because I believed that as long as the hat was on the plane, it wouldn't crash. I bought it at a store in Disneyland, during one of my many trips there when I had an annual pass.

The best thing about that hat is that it made me very easy to find at anime and comic book conventions because nobody else would be wearing one. The other best thing is that I looked fucking awesome wearing it.

Alas, I lost it by leaving it on one of the Fung Wah buses back to Chinatown after a convention. I'd stuck it in the overhead rack, and because it was raining when the bus pulled into Chinatown, I completely forgot about it in favor of pulling the hood of my jacket over my head. By the time I remembered, it was too late.

The spirit of the hat lives on in the form of my tiger-print cowboy hat, but the luck and allure of wearing it seems to have faded away for me since it's really just hat 2.0.

A victorian era gnome that my grandmother gave to me. It was the oldest family thing I had. It was put away. Then it was gone. I don't know where it went.

I have also lost the ability to say "Butter Pecan Rican" out loud without cracking the fuck up.

I have also lost the ability to say "Butter Pecan Rican"

Dude, I saw one rather zoftig mamacita on the subway who had that tattooed in gothic script on her bicep.

jonmc: That's "zaftig." A, not O.

No zoftig is different than zaftig. Zoftig means "limited in choice of tattoo fonts".

From the Low Dutch, natch.

Is there any other kind of Dutch?

My daddy had a machete from El Salvador that he'd never let me play with. The sheath had tassels.

Yes, High Dutch.

HUGH JANUS!

And also, Double Dutch.

Well, considering the drug laws in the Netherlands, High Dutch is probably more common.

Ah yes, from the Double Dutch:


I'm a little Dutch girl dressed in blue,
Here are the things I like to do.
Salute the Captain,
Curtsy to the queen,
Turn my back on a big submarine!

I've never heard that rhyme, Wino. But I suspect that there are gestures that go along with it.

New Amsterdam, it's become much too much
Till I have the possession of everything she touches
Till I step on the brakes to get out of her clutches
Till I speak double-dutch
to a real double-dutchess.

Some of my clothes from the 80s, notably: a long denim skirt that was fitted at the top and then flared out into a huge almost hoop skirt - I trashed that riding on the back of some guy's motorcycle. My purple elf boots; my pink lace Fiorucci skirt; my purple lace high top sneakers. My steal your face T-shirt that I had since high school. My 1920s dress that my bohemian auntie gave me that disintegrated on the dance floor of the King Street Garden and Gun Club on New Years Eve 1987 (best.new.years.evar.) The painting of me and my daughter and the Cookie Monster called Madonna and Child with St. John the Baptist that my college boyfriend did and my crazy ex mother in law later on threw away or did something evil to. While I'm at it, I think I want that boyfriend back, too.

When I was in college, I spent several months living in Sapporo, Japan, and attending Hokkaido Tokai University, a second-tier engineering school with ties to my small Eastern Indiana Quaker liberal arts college. Towards the end of my stay, I spent a weekend on Okushiri Island, relaxing in a small fishing village, enjoying the fruits of the sea, and practicing my Japanese with folks who'd never spoken to a foreigner before.

I stayed at a minshuku, a kind of inn, where the proprietor told delightful stories while serving breakfast and dinner to myself and a few fisherman staying under his roof. After dinner, the fishermen taught me to play hanafuda, a card game with about forty small colorful cards, something like a cross between rummy and The Memory Game (by Milton Bradley).

I have a thing for the salt of the earth, and these guys were it. We played hanafuda well into the night, and the next night, and the next, and then just before I left, the proprietor of the minshuku gave me the hanafuda deck we'd been using, saying that the fishermen wanted me to have it.

A week later a tsunami struck Okushiri island, devastating the fishery, destroying the minshuku and killing all the men who taught me hanafuda.

Before I left Japan a couple months later, I packed a box full of things and shipped it home. When it arrived, the tape on the bottom of the box was torn and half the contents lost, including my deck of hanafuda cards.

I wish I had that back.

I also wish I could meet up with youse tonight, but I've got prior engagements I can't wriggle out of. Maybe again later in the week?

Or is it Parker Brothers?

Perhaps later in the week, I will end up embroiled in home stuff I fear. But someday, sooner rather than later with the blessing.

Now that I think about it, there are way more things I wish I still had than things I have that I want to keep. One of the only things I've ever successfully replaced was a book called "How I saved the world", which was a weirdo nuclear paranoia zen hippie schlub makes good tale. I loved it as a young teenager and then lost it and somehow found a first edition of it in a bookstore in New Orleans and I bought it just to have it again. The first one I had wasn't as nice or well taken care of, but I've edited my memory such that when I see it on my bookshelf I say to myself, there is my treasured childhood book. Then I say no it isn't, it's a replacement, then I go in the other room and play KATAMARI DAMACY!

Which is a bugged out video game about collecting a huge ball of STUFF! Do you see? Circular, all back together!

Katamari is the best. Y'ever play WE LOVE KATAMARI (the sequel)?

I can't get enough of rolling things up, though I wish the king would shut up already.

I'm just starting to play katamari this last week, I got if for the kid for Christmas, but I'm way more into it than she is (although she likes to watch me play it), I can tell it will be my obsession for a long time and I'm glad there is a sequel. I kinda like that the king is such a dick, it seems very real and I like that he vomits rainbows.

The king reminds me of Robert Shaw in A Man For All Seasons.

I can't get enought of the dancing pandas in the Katamari intro. Na na na na na na na na, na na na na na na.....

That intro is the best, the breakdancing pandas, the king playing the guitar.

Totally Robert Shaw, totally.


He's got that crotch bulge, which I find amusing, the one kinda icky for kids thing in the whole game is the kings basket. Katamari is one of the things I would show aliens as proof that the Earth should not be destroyed.

Katamari is one of the things I would show aliens as proof that the Earth should not be destroyed.

Just rolled up and flung off into space.

It's all about the king. And his package. His mighty, mighty package.

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