no, not star trek the motion picture... v'ger! it was 30 years ago yesterday, that we shot you out. almost two years later, you and your sister passed your first destination, jupiter. just about a month before my sister was born. and i thought we'd made it far from home... but you're nearly to the heliopause. that's much further than chicago and san francisco are from dallas.


and i had a rainbow book, but i had these. and they came with fancypants cassettes by this time. i can't wait to explain what those are to my kids someday...

today though, is my dad's birthday. when we visit my mom's family, they all grab my sister and say, "suki, it's you!". this never happens to me. i don't look much like my mom, though i have her mother's eyebrows. and i don't look much like my dad either. or maybe the family has been too polite to declare it even if they do see it, because i do look like his sister. and get us in an argument; we could pass for mirrors. and so i think the two of us are a testament to nature, nurture and possibly the zodiac. and syndication. because i grew up with all the stories my mother and father loved... i was lucky enough to have parents that cared about what i saw (not that i appreciated it at the time...), enough to lie about not being about to afford cable. and so my childhood too, was populated with kirk and spock. flash gordon and gort. and huge swathes were given over to the rings of monty python's flying circus. and in the car i learned all the lyrics of all the beatles songs and simon and garfunkle and the radio was even filtered through old hippies.

and i'm suspicious, because i'm not certain how much of me is me and how much is software you and mom loaded. but i'm pretty sure i like us all too much to be really worried. happy birthday, dad. thanks for making me into me.