Lunch Break Papers

The image says it all.

It appears that I have lost my watch yesterday.
It was a black Fossil watch with a silver etching of Marvin the Martian's head on the face. I bought it in 1999, in the Warner Brothers shop on Pier 39 in San Fransisco, after lunch at the Pier Market Seafood Restaurant. I was there with a friend, who said when I wavered about whether to get it or not, that I would regret it if I didn't. So I decided to get it and then found out it was 50% off.
I can remember taking it with me yesterday when I went swimming, and putting it into my trouser pocket when I got out of the car. But it's not in my pockets, not in my bag, and not in the car. I hope that whoever finds it gives it a good home.
OK, I know that in the grand scheme of things, me loosing a watch doesn't amount to much. But it was my watch, and there are memories attached to it.

I am starting to wonder how big our next-door neighbour's garden is, because he's been mowing the lawn for two hours now.
Two hours.
He's either working very, very slowly, or his lawn mower isn't worth the money it takes to let it run. Every time the mower stops, I hope he's finished already, but about half a minute later, he starts again. It takes me about half an hour to mow our lawn, of a same-sized garden.
Either way, the incessant hum of the lawn mower is slowly but surely getting on my nerves and is destroying my concentration.

I could not access half the sites I usually have no problem with. I try everything I can think of - clear the cache, the cookies, the history, ping the server - no problem - use a different browser (IE - yuck!), nothing works. Maybe it's the connection, so I try my mum's computer - no problem at all. So it must be my computer.
It's turned the bloody Windows firewall back on. I turn it off - don't worry, I have a firewall of my own - and suddenly, everything works again. Miracle upon miracle!
I do hate it when my computer does things I don't tell it to. Sometimes I wish I was a luddite. Only then I wouldn't have this.

Oh, yes, and we're one game on. With flags a-waving and car horns a-hooting and people a-celebrating until the break of dawn. Hooray! Schland! Schland! ;)

This ties in with an earlier conversation I was having, as well as a post by ladyjillian; also, it is something that has been preying on my mind, and it concerns MTV.
No, not the question why a tv station the program of which consists mostly of talk shows, reality tv and adverts for mobile phone ringtones is called "music television", though that is something I've also asked myself a few times.
This time, though, it's a specific show I mean, MTV's "Made, which I don't so much watch as occasionally fall into when I'd much rather be asleep, or am taking a break and knitting.
For those who've never seen this show before, a short recap: teenagers who want to achieve something special or change their lives in some way write in to MTV, who then supply a coach or two, facilities etc, while following the teenager around with a camera. The special acievement can range from "I want to be a coast guard", "I want to become a model" to "I want to become better at school".

So far, so good.

Now, the last two episodes of this that I've seen were upsetting and worrying me. In one of them, there was this rather tomboyish teen who loved her books (fantasy, mostly), was very much into sports, had her own katana, and looked slightly like Harry Potter with the glasses and the hair. Anyway, she wanted to be Helen in the school's theatre production of Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream. So during this show, this geeky, yet confident and interesting teen learns to wear dresses and high heels and how to ask out boys, gets her face made up and her hairdo changed, in short, she is turned into a Woman. The acting classes she gets support this, since Helen has to be this very female, uh, female.
In the next episode, there's this guy, about the same age. He's not even geeky, just different - he likes to read poetry, is fencing, likes to wear highly colourful shoes and play RPGs. He actually described himself as a born-too-late romantic. His goal? To ask out a girl for the school dance. In order to achieve this, he gets turned into a run-of-the-mill, slightly macho, "cool", ideal college boy, in short, a Man.

And the only thing I can ask myself while I sit and watch this is: Why?

Do you know the feeling when you're absolutely tired, as if you've been swimming for a couple of hours and then having interesting conversations in the afternoon and then walked home because you missed the bus and you're dog tired by half past ten so you lie down and watch TV for a bit, then turn it off around eleven because it's 32 channels and nothing on, and you turn off the light and expect to graciously fall into a deep, exhausted sleep but only a few minutes later you realize that while your body is dog tired, your mind is wide awake, thoughts running around your brain thinking over the day and overanalyzing yourself again wishing you'd said something else or nothing at all and your thoughts are dragging you into cul-de-sacs which of course aren't any, it's only because your mind can't relax the way your body would wish to, and besides it's too bright to sleep, get up push down blinds, and it's too stuffy, get up again open window a bit, too cold, cuddle up in blankets, need to pee get up again find way in darkness and cold and get back into bed and your mind still can't relax so you turn on a bit of cool jazz to occupy your mind with, but hey, says the mind, fascinating, I've never heard what comes after that piece, let's stay awake and find out, and you try to relax as much as possible when suddenly the square centimetre of skin on your right big toe which got abraded during swimming makes itself felt every time it touches the blankets and your left upper thigh develops a twitch and your nose itches and the usually so comfortable pillow is full of bumps and you can't find any way to lie that is even remotely comfortable and your mind is still very much interested in the music and by now it's one o'clock and you
JUST
CAN'T
SLEEP?

Well, if you know the feeling, at least I'm not alone.