A good thing that happened while I was away: gay people started getting married in San Francisco. Even though I know that there are a lot of hateful people out there trying to work against this using religion as their great excuse (when Christianity is not about hate), including our governor and president, I still feel proud that this is happening at least somewhere in this country. And very proud that it is happening in my city.

A bad thing that happened while I was away: Angel got cancelled. I haven't been as dedicated a viewer as I was of Buffy, but I took great comfort in the fact that the Buffyverse lived on. I want Joss to be able to tell the story he wants to tell, all the way to the end. And I want to know that story. Now what, made-for-TV-movies? Comic books? FAN FICTION? This is the kind of thing that makes the baby Jesus cry. Not gay marriage. Priorities, people!

Also while I was gone, I got 3100 pieces of spam, and six real e-mails. This is not an exaggeration. One saving grace was that one of the e-mails was from my new favorite alias, "Buster F. Antonym." That is so my rap name.

I hope none of you sent me legitimate e-mails that had subject lines like "hey" or "hi" or "make her moan with your rock-hard, seventeen-inch manhood." If so, you may need to re-send them.

One very upsetting thing about my vacation (in addition to the fact that it was long, cold, boring and depressing) is that in my sleep-deprived delirium, I forgot to check around my seat when getting off the plane, and I left my digital camera (with all my cool photos) on the plane. I have been kicking myself for this ever since, believe you me. I am keeping my fingers crossed that someone turns it in. I feel just awful about it.

At least the bright side is that I won't be inflicting pictures of my new clothes on you, at least not for a few days. We went shopping in Amsterdam and I am here to tell you, the 80's are back! In my closet.

I was a little too enthusiastic about the 80's even back then, and you would think as a grownup I'd have shame about the legwarmers, the neon pink tank tops, and the pop beads, but you would be oh so very wrong about that.

I got this one outfit... oh man, it is so Pat Benatar. Off-the-shoulder, with the pink stripes and the bra straps showing. I'm going to wear it with a denim skirt and hot pink legwarmers! (Note to self: buy legwarmers.)

I think 2004 is going to be about finding as many ways as possible to embarrass myself, and then writing about all of those ways on the internet. Item one is, of course, the whole Clay Aiken thing. Item two is the Pat Benatar outfit. Item three is that I just subscribed to STAR magazine. (Under the pseudonym Buster F. Antonym. For real.) And to think, in 2003, all I had was the mushroom!

I think I am going through some kind of yuppie crisis. It all began when I realized I am, in fact, a Young Urban Professional who goes to Starbucks every morning and reads Lucky magazine, and decided I needed to counteract it by acting as insane as possible.

Because if there's anything that I've learned from this most recent life experience, it's that you only live once, and you only get a limited amount of time in which to act like a freak, dress like a dork, and make people embarrassed to be seen with you in public. So you should live it up while you can!