September 27, 2000 11:58 PM EST

Hooray for Pernox. My pimple plagued face is healing and definitely improving. Although, next time, I have to get it I want to ask for the lemon flavor -- the regular one smells kind of... stale ocean... and I don't care for that too much. It's been so long, I had completely forgotten is smells like that! Paul looked at it and noted it's 1.5% salicylic acid over Stridex's 0.5% and asked me why I don't just rub aspirin on my face since that's all generic aspirin is -- 100% salicylic acid. Smartypants. *whap*

Today I turned 25. Whee! Other than tidying up the house, I took the day off from everything and just did stuff I felt like doing. I read a book. I baked my birthday cake. I made corn muffins to go with stew for lunch. I made split pea soup for later this week. I almost baked fresh bread because I figured -- I have the oven on already for all this other stuff -- why not use the heat? I loooove cooking when I don't have to!

But I didn't make bread because I had to get ready to go out with my parents by 6 o'clock and bread making takes awhile.

We went to meet Paul at the bookstore and then walked to the restaurant. None of us had been there before so it was amusing to go somewhere new. I had a spicy eggplant dish with brown rice -- it was soooo good! Paul had duck, dad had chicken curry, mom had some shrimp thing. Mom said she's not giving me a present until the BBQ party later but Paul gave me his present today -- a 13 function wireless bike meter! Yaaaay! I can't wait to put that on the bike and try it out.

Got a surprise in the mail from Courtney as well -- Power Puff Girls stuff! Cards from friends and relatives and a phone call from Shawn, who forgot it was my birthday but called to see how I was doing anyway. Mostly we talked about nothing -- the kind of nothing we've been talking about for years. It was amusing, and he's decided to move back with his parents while he goes back to college to get his master's and teaching certification. I'm glad he's going back. I don't know that I'll ever go back, but we shall see. His girl problems are still problems but I think he's basically getting over this one, Which is good because he prolongs this kind of stuff much longer than need be.

I told him about Janis biting Paul and he screamed, "I KNEW IT! I KNEW THOST THINGS HAD TEETH!" I started laughing. He'd never lived in the tropics until his dad was assigned to duty in Panama (marines) and Shawn and I were in the 11th grade in HS. He'd been taking out the trash when out of these hibiscus bushes came this very large adult iguana (6 ft plus) chased him around and freaked him out quite badly. So he called me up and told me some iguana had tried to eat him and I had told him not to be silly because green iguanas are folivores and eat leaves, not people. They are also partial to hibiscus so the iguana had probably seen the bright flowers around Shawn's house and crept out of the jungle area and came over to eat and got startled and defensive when Shawn came along lugging noisy trash cans. Shawn wasn't convinced then and he still isn't convinced now. Too funny.

Paul took a nap and then when he got up we spent a long time talking about my birthday suit in the shower and what parts are twenty-five and what parts are not.

"I'm not all 25?" I wondered.

"No. Your teeth are not. Your hair is not."

"Oh, I see. Well, my toes are. So are my hands and tickly fingers," I tickled him.

"I'd say your boobs are about 15 or so."

"15?" I thought about it. "I guess.... 14 or 15. How old is your chest hair? Two years?"

"Yeah, all five of them!"

He tried to make fun of me getting older and I pointed out no matter how old I get, he will always be older than me.

"Oh, yeah? What if I said I am aging like fine wine?" he announced.

"What do you mean? Like stellar vinegar?" I retorted.

This spawned an entertaining chase. He caught me somewhere in the kitchen and pushed me up against a wall and starting pinching and tickling me. Of course, we ended up in bed for more birthday suit discussions and things were growing quite cozy when we heard this velcro sounding noise... iguana scales scraping against the bed linens. I started screaming and kicking to get away from the noise. Paul jumped up, turned on the ceiling light which blinded me, and started flapping the sheets yelling, "Who is that!? Who is there!?"

It was Ziggy trying to crawl up into bed with us to see what we were doing. Why are pets so weird?!