Hoo-dawg. I sure wish I could say that I’ve spent the past several days doing feats of rare talent and cunning, but I’ve mostly been screaming incoherently at my computer and watching the ‘Star Wars’ trilogy. (For the record, I think Mark Hamill may have been badly miscast. He has his moments, but for the most part he’s just a misproportioned troll with an irritating voice and a bad haircut. Or maybe I’m having a bad day, since I’ve seen the trilogy at least four times and never found fault with him before.) Oh yeah, and I spent most of this afternoon with glue between my fingers and newsprint under my nails, making a pinata. Not just any pinata, but one for the darling of the family and the apple of everyone’s eye, my brother’s best friend, who’s turning 18 this Saturday. Thus, Al and I thought it appropriate to fashion a pair of papier-mache breasts which the birthday boy can whack with a decorated stick to spill out condoms, fake money, and Hershey’s Kisses (and you can guess which ones were mine, Al’s, and our mother’s ideas). By thumping my head against a wall till it left a bowl-shaped dent, I was able to recall my eighteenth birthday, which involved exactly the following: two dozen roses, a one-seventeenth sized replica of a Volkswagen Beetle, standing in line to buy about six textbooks, a refund from the first movie theater we went to, two free drinks, and a headache. Oh, and a slathering crush on the guy I am now seeing. Hmm. Guess it wasn’t a total wash after all.