I am a slave to pop culture. If you listen to my cats’ names, past and present, you can tell. Currently, it’s Napoleon Dynamite, Yaya (you know, the sisterhood) and Dukey (the old Budweiser commercial – “Yo, Dukey! Whassuuuuuup?”). Past cats are Gir (the robot from Invader Zim), Jamie (from Outlander), Eliza (from The Wild Thornberries), Simba, Bimini (remember presidential candidate Gary Hart’s infamous trip to that island?) and Aislinn (the Edge from U2’s first wife.)

I’m addicted to Lost, Alias, 24. I even have a Jack Bauer shirt. (I wanted a Bo Bice bracelet, but found out about them too late.) I have all the latest DVD releases on my Blockbuster queue. I see the popular movies the first weekend they come out. (Mr. and Mrs. Smith is AWESOME – a definite purchase when it comes out.) I don’t generally buy People or those type of magazines, but if one of my favorite stars is in it, you bet I get it. I have the ones with Viggo on the cover, Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Sawyer. I could easily watch E! every day. I bought a DVD/CD shelf for Christmas and it’s filled up rapidly since then. My husband and son do their part with the music. My husband would make a killing if they brought back Rock and Roll Jeopardy.

This is not a new affliction. When I was a girl, my entire allowance went to teen magazines and cassette tapes. My walls were covered with pictures of Shaun Cassidy, who morphed into John Schneider (yes, the Duke boy.) I wrote stories starring Robbie Benson, Jonathan Cain of Journey, Bono of U2. Now my stories star Chris Noth (Mr. Big), Goran Visnijc, George Clooney, Josh Duhamel (Las Vegas). I know, with all these pictures of Gerard Butler, you just can’t believe it, right?

My latest pop culture downfall is the Spurs. I used to watch basketball rabidly, from the time David Robinson joined the Spurs, and I was a freak for the Bulls when they had their three-peat in the early 90s. During the first Spurs championship season I didn’t miss a game. I had the window flag and the shoe polished windows. I went to the parade that year, I had enough Spurs shirts that I didn’t wear anything else that summer. Interest waned as I got more and more involved in writing. I didn’t watch much the last championship season, and nothing at all last year, or until Sunday, this year. But the city has transformed the past few weeks. During The Game, the city is a ghost town. You could go to the grocery store and not wait in line. You’d be the only person at the intersection. You could sit alone in the movie theater. On almost every corner is a tent selling Spurs shirts, flags, bumper stickers. My favorite shirt is the Obi Wan Ginobli shirt – combines two pop culture bits. Every other car sports a window flag or shoe polish proclaiming the Spurs #1. So, while I’m not going to go that far, I think I will get the shirt, and watch the games and cheer and hope they bring home another trophy.