Mum came, slapped some clothes and toys in a bag, strapped the car seat into her car, and took off with my kid! I feel so... Babeless. I stood at the screen door watching them back down the driveway, do a u-ey, and pull away. Bye, Babe. She waved. "Bye, Mummy."

She's going to bring her back tomorrow after dinner.

So, today, Manly and I ran all over town, shopping and goofing off, and generally pretending we were still young and silly and pre-procreation (how's that for a nasty prefixing jobber?). First, we dropped off my car to have the CD player and 10" Bazooka (a goofy-looking speaker that carries and amplifies bass-range frequencies, and that's all I care to know) installed. After wandering around the downtown mall — window-shopping, mostly — we paused for a late lunch at an "American" grill, and then swung over to Nameless Chain Electronics and Appliance Outlet to look for a new caller-id box. Of course, we got lost in the computer section for the better part of our visit, sniggering at the substandard garbage dressed up with brand names, exclamation points, and gluttonous prices.

And, pardon my pathetic "I'm too old for this crap" -ness, but... What the hell was Intel thinking when they approved their latest ad campaign? Neon-clad, disco-dancing space dudes? I'm offended. My intelligence is offended.

I see that advert once more, and I'm selling my shares.

Manly's beeper sounded just as we rounded the aisle of phones and phone devices. It was the stereo installer. My happy little car! Finito! Manly grabbed a caller-id box, and we sprinted for the checkout lanes.

In my rush earlier, I'd grabbed the first CD that came to mind as both enjoyable and worthy of testing the new bass. I'd snatched up my dog-eared, shattered jewel-case copy of "Pretty Hate Machine." When we arrived at the installers, they were playing (to my horror) Rap. In my car.

No, you really need to pause and let that sink in.

Poorly edited, sampled from analogue Rap music.

In my 1997 [mid-sized Japanese luxury automobile], with the snooty emblems and tinted windows.

I think this one deserves its own entry in the thesaurus under "discordant."

I ripped that trash out of my new player so fast, I think the pimple-faced monkeyboy assistant feared I'd break the (his) disc. Into the shuttle went good ol' Trent, and "Head Like a Hole" boomed to life, the Bazooka in the trunk rumbling right along with every 808 and 909.

Ahh, much better.

Rap in my car. The nerve.

We went to the movies as a belated celebration of having bought the new car. Okay, so we were three weeks late in doing so. Sue us. Hit the late-show of Kiss the Girls, and loved it. So-so on the storyline (I mean, how completely original can you really make a whodunnit?), but worth our hot little US$7 each since Morgan Freeman and Ashley Judd were in. We're suckers for genre flicks, anyhow.

Amazingly enough, we arrived early, and were able to see all of the trailers, one of which was the four minute tease for Titanic (slated to open 19 December, 1997). I became so enamoured with the characters, so mesmerised by what flickered on the screen before me, by the time the trailer ended, I'd forgotten what movie we'd come to see. I'd forgotten where we were. Even when I did realise we were at the theatre, I wasn't entirely sure if we were waiting for our picture to start, or if we'd just finished watching it.

Pan up over the docks. Fine ladies and gentlemen dressed in rich fabrics, dark hues. Floppy hats with feathers. Waxed moustaches. Starched paper collars. Ankle-length skirts. A great ship, out of focus, in the background. Up. Broaden. Four jutting stacks, smouldering, sinister. She is beautiful, a nymph calling me to the rocks, singing her sweet nothings in my ears. "Come to me. Let me hold you. Let me love you. Let me take you..."

I didn't need to see the titles, didn't need to read the leading text. "Oh my god," I whispered. "It's the Titanic."

And I started to cry.

Even as a little babe, I regarded the ship with solemn awe. "It's big and pretty," I told Mum, "but it's a bad thing." RMS Titanic sank 60 years to the day I was born. If you discount timezones, she went down the hour I was born, as well. I have always known that, and I've always known her. Not just of her, mind you. Her. Asking me to recall a time that I didn't is like asking me when I first realised I could read. I can't; it's always been so.

If past lives do exist, I went down on that ship.

I hadn't wanted anyone to find her in the first place. Leave her alone. Just let it be. There are some things we just don't need to know. When Discovery ran all those Titanic specials, showing footage of the depths, I turned the channel. My stomach went sour. I couldn't watch. It isn't that ship herself was some boogeymonster, irrevocably damned, come to snatch me from my living room some three-quarters of a century later. No. That tiny smudge in time when she lay her shattered hull to rest, that is evil. The ship, bonded for all eternity with that time slice, is guilty by association.

I'm going to face her and her time on 19 December. Yes, I know the story's been partially fictionalised, and perhaps that is the only reason I'm considering it. RMS Titanic and I have some rather old business to attend, you see. Once and for all.