hey, big spender.

Guys and Dolls
I received this disc from Netflix the same day that I also got State Fair. I watched the State Fair in pieces, half an hour in the evenings while I puttered around the house or browsed the web or wrote in my journal. Once it was over, I put in Guys and Dolls with the intention of watching it the same way. Five minutes later, I turned it off, because I had already realized that this was a movie that I wanted to devote my full attention to.

I saw this movie a long time ago, because my ex-boyfriend, who also did not much care for musical theatre, said he liked it. I'm not sure why he liked this one (and also Damn Yankees) while he shunned so many others. Perhaps he saw it when he was little. Parents, make your kids watch musicals while they're too young to scoff at dancing and they'll be lifelong fans. Or maybe he just liked it because it's really, really good.

The movie revolves around a floating crap game and a group of gamblers, sinners, and all-around scoundrels. But they're loveable scoundrels. The leads are played by Frank Sinatra and Marlon Brando, back when he was thin and cool and handsome. All the characters are loveable in their way, and even though they are crooks, there is a sort of nobility in their behavior, like honor among thieves. They just happen to make their living doing illegal stuff. There are women who love them, and in the end, they are redeemed by that love. I could write a lot about this movie, about loving scoundrels, about redemption, about morality even, but you know what? You should just watch it. Brando's hot.

The script is excellent. All the gamblers talk in a sort of mobster fashion, without contractions, like Grover the Muppet if he played craps.

Songs and Dance: The opening scene shows five minutes of a New York City street, with various extras going about their New York City business, but while dancing. It is really obvious that this movie is made to look like a stage play, or at the very least, is true to its roots on the stage. Much of the regular action has a certain flair about it, even if it's not part of a musical number. And the songs are very good, too, with the lyrics being particularly strong. Of note were "Luck Be a Lady," "Adelaide's Lament," and "Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat," which was covered by Don Henley back in the 90s. The movie left out several songs from the stage version, including "A Bushel and a Peck," which my mom used to sing to me before bed.

I'm going to post two clips for this movie. One, the opening scene that so caught my attention. Wouldn't it be a nice kind of world if everything was just a little bit more dance-y? The song is great, too. Don't you just want to watch the rest of a movie that begins like this?


I would have liked to post "Luck Be a Lady," but the only copy on YouTube did not do the scene justice. So here is "Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat." It's the testimony of Nicely-Nicely Johnson, a gambler and associate of Nathan Detroit, at a prayer meeting.


Will I Make Josh Watch It: Yup. I will probably buy my own copy.

Calamity Jane
I don't want to say that this movie is exactly like Annie, Get Your Gun, but the similarities are striking enough to make me think that Calamity Jane was made to capitalize on the success of the earlier western woman movie (Wikipedia says that I am right). Historical female figure, known for sharp-shootin' and other various macho activities, becomes a lady, wins a man, sings, dances. It even has Howard Keel playing Wild Bill Hickok. Rather than Betty Hutton, it has Doris Day. I've been kinda cool on Doris Day since seeing The Pajama Game, but I decided that I like her again. Her mannerisms were perfect. Maybe it's just really easy to play a woman who acts like a man. After all, I've been doing it for years. This movie is of little educational value - apparently the real Calamity Jane was a prostitute and alcoholic, rather than one of the boys who learns to wear a dress. Also, she probably couldn't sing worth crap.

This movie isn't bad. But since it is from the same mold as Annie, Get Your Gun, it's impossible not to compare them, and I'm afraid that that other frontier woman musical is just stronger. Anything Calamity Jane can do, Annie Oakley can do better, at least in musical theatre form. I do wonder if my daughter would hate me forever if I named her Calamity. I mean, it's kinda pretty, right?

Songs and Dance: None of the strongs really caught me, though of course they were well-sung. I guess when you write songs quickly so that you can make money before a fad disappears, it shows! There was very little dancing. I will share this number, which is so similar to "Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better" that the creators really ought to be embarrassed at such blatant copying. It's still kinda cute.


Will I Make Josh Watch It: Nah.

Sweet Charity
This one was sort of like if a jazz dance performance and a sad, nothing-really-happens-sort-of movie had a baby. There is a story, but it's more about following a dance hall hostess with low self-esteem around. She gets robbed by her boyfriend, then meets an Italian film star, then gets trapped in an elevator, then almost gets married. Things happen, but nothing lasting happens. The movie is really more about optimism and hope in the face of a completely depressing situation more than anything else. Which is not to say that it wasn't interesting to watch. Shirley Maclaine is very likeable as Charity, the main character. However, I'm not sure you could get through watching her sad life if not for the musical numbers. You could say it was art and that it makes a strong statement, but in the end, you'd feel really bummed out and want to watch "Calamity Jane," because at least it was happy.

I would feel remiss if I did not mention that there is a wonderful scene where Sammy Davis, Jr. is the leader of the Church of the Rhythm of Life, and he sings and dances with a bunch of flower children in an underground car garage. There is also Ricardo Montalban, who is fun to watch and has a fun name to say. Try it! Ri-car-do Mon-tal-ban!

Songs and Dance: The dancing was really what made the movie worth watching. It was directed by Bob Fosse, and I know that means something to people who know about dance, but I'm not one of them. I can read Wikipedia and find out that his choreography exudes "a stylized, cynical sexuality," but still, I feel like I don't know enough about dance to really understand what that means. I guess I'm not used to examining dance to figure out what makes one different from another or why I like one more than another. But I can still enjoy it, right? Of course, right.

I recognized a couple of the songs, so now I can feel smart when I hear the songs and remember that I know where they came from. You can do it, too. Next time you hear "If My Friends Could See Me Now" or "Big Spender" at a dinner party, be sure to remark airily how much you enjoyed Bob Fosse's stylized, cynical sexuality in "Sweet Charity." Just in case any of your friends are brave enough to call your bluff, here is "Big Spender." It's a really well-done scene where the dance hall girls are trying to attract a customer. See how cynical and sexual it is?


Actually, it kinda is. Maybe I get it?

Will I Make Josh Watch It: Probably not. He would enjoy parts of it, but it was two and a half hours long. Maybe I should start releasing Musical Cliff Notes so he can see the good scenes. Or maybe that's what I just did.

tastes like butter.

The first time I had real buttercream was a couple of years ago, at a bakery near my office where a woman in a lovely, crisp apron had her own shop where she made everything from scratch. And I was amazed. I've never been a big fan of icing, and I especially dislike the kind that comes on grocery store cakes, labelled "Non-Dairy Icing." After I tried buttercream on one of those tiny and decadent cakes, I am even more against those nasty non-dairy icing cakes. They are an insult to the truth and beauty of real buttercream.

Buttercream tastes like butter. I know, obvious, right? But listen: did you ever think that it would be awesome to just eat a stick of butter? After all, butter is so good, everyone knows that, and if you've never actually tried to eat it plain and whole in stick form, it seems like a really good idea. But then you do take a bite and it's sorta gross in a way that you can't quite put your finger on. The texture is weird, it's greasy, and your body sort of rejects it immediately, saying, "Dude. Bad idea."

Well, eating buttercream is what eating straight butter should be like. I wish they sold it in stick form. It's probably good that they don't.

I don't have a recipe for buttercream, because I've never made it. But buttercream is not the only thing in the wide world of food that tastes like it came from the parallel universe where eating straight butter is not gross. My chocolate pie is like that. Sure, it tastes like chocolate: Chocolate butter. And my recipe for chicken pot pie works on a similar equation. This pot pie has lots of delicious poultry and fresh vegetables, like all the other chicken pot pies. It's baked in a homemade flaky crust, painstakingly rolled out, again like all the other chicken pot pies. What makes this pot pie special is the gravy. It tastes like butter. After I finish making the gravy, after I pour it into the pie and seal it up, while the pie is baking to buttery perfection, I lick the gravy spoon. I run my finger through the still-hot pan, even though it burns a little, to get every last dreg. Having just made it, I know how close it is to just shoving a stick of butter in my pot-pie-hole, but I won't stop until it is all gone. Then I wait impatiently until I can slice open the pie and eat chicken and vegetables that have taken a gravy bath.

Along with buttercream and chocolate pie, this chicken pot pie is as close as you would ever want to come to eating a stick of butter. Plus, it's got vegetables in it, so it's good for you. Sort of.

Chicken Pot Pie

jokes in the lunch line.

I remember being outgoing, once upon a time. I remember making friends easily, talking to new people as if it were nothing, being dropped in social situations and thriving.

An illustration: I went to a United Methodist camp every summer. One year, when I was about eleven, all the other girls at the camp went to the same church and so they all knew each other, while I was all alone, the girls from my church having gone to Camp Ginger Cascades with the Girl Scouts. By the end of the week, however, I belonged, and all those girls were my friends. I got home and told my mom all about it. She told me that a similar thing had happened to my older sister when she was little, and by the week's end, she had been in tears from the misery of it, having made no new friends at all. I'm sure if you check the comments she'll have an updated version of this story, but that's how my mom told it and that's how it's useful for me right now.

I even remember discussing the topic of being outgoing with my older brother, who was (is) introverted. He thought it was odd that I was so extroverted, when most everyone else in the family was pretty much the opposite. He had another illustration. During his senior year of college, he was walking across campus with his sister-in-law, who was a freshman. As they walked, she waved or said hello to half a dozen people that she knew, while he didn't see anyone at all that he was acquainted with well enough to even wave. How had she already built such a wide circle after only six months there while he was in his fourth year?

I told him that making friends was easy. You just talk to someone. There's always something going on around you that could be the spark of a conversation with a new friend, no matter where you are. Say something funny, I told him, which is pretty much my advice for everything. He took it all in with a thoughtful nod, as if I were giving him sage advice. How many times am I going to look back at a childhood memory and wonder if my siblings were just making fun of me all the time?

But I was sincere, as though my brother's problem was just that he couldn't come up with any good jokes. When I was twelve, I went to a retreat with my church youth group. There were lots of other church groups there, all staying in a camp-like setting. I knew the people in my group, of course, but I frequently felt like the odd person out. So I decided to make my own group. I used my failsafe technique of telling a joke in the lunch line, and I made a new friend. And then I couldn't get rid of her for the rest of the weekend. Apparently, she had trouble making friends, too. The moment I told a joke to her in the lunch line must have been the highlight of her weekend.

And then somehow, I don't know when, talking to strangers became really, really hard. Well, not actually difficult, it just didn't come naturally to me anymore. I would guess that it started in high school, got worse in college, and then in the real world, I finally completed my thick shell. It's actually quite nice, really, I'm thinking of putting in a sky light.

I confess that I did not notice it at first. Some people make friends easily because they can't stand to be alone. The thought of being by themselves is scarier than any social situation. I have my own opinions about people like that, but for now, we'll just say that I am good at solitude. I totally rock at it. Not only is my tolerance for solitude very high, I have a strong need for it. I used to come home from waiting tables and barricade myself in my room hiding from my roommates. Then I would sneak out to dinner and a movie alone, because I was so tired of having to talk to people. I know there are many who would be horrified at the thought of going out to eat or see a movie alone, but to me it was like therapy. I needed that time to myself.

That wasn't so much an issue once I left school and started programming for a living. The thing about school is that friends are sort of built in. You are constantly surrounded by people your own age with whom you are bound to have several things in common. I did not find that to be the case once I left college. My coworkers have always been mostly married men with children. We are friends at work, but we don't really see each other outside of the office. But the socialization at work was enough for me, for a long time. And then at some point I looked around and realized that I had been living in a town for two years, and I didn't have any friends. I'm not sure if I had been lonely for a while and not noticed it, or the realization of my friendlessness made me feel that way.

And then once I realized that I was lonely, I really felt it. I had friends, but they were vestigial friends from school that now lived in other cities or states or countries. I thought it would be nice to have someone I could see a movie with that didn't require air transit. I would see women my age and if they looked like interesting people, I would want desperately to go talk to them. But despite what a twelve-year-old Sandra once told her brother, I could never come up with anything that I would say other than "Will you be my friend?" which sometimes seemed bold and honest, but usually sounded pathetic in my own head. I felt like the girl in the lunch line, waiting for some extrovert to tell me a joke. That never happened. I told myself some good ones, though.

It's not as if I didn't have opportunities. People have reached out to me, and I have kept my distance, maybe spending the time putting up pretty wallpaper on the interior of my shell instead. Because even after I discovered that I had no friends, I wanted to be picky about it. Maybe it was the lesson I'd taken from the girl in the lunch line. She turned out to be kind of boring and clingy and I realized soon enough that I would rather be alone than hang out with her. Is that a high tolerance for solitude or arrogance? I can't even tell anymore. So when some well-meaning person tried to be my friend, they had a very short amount of time to impress me or I'd write them off (okay, that is probably arrogance). It wasn't even for good reasons. Sometimes just because we didn't click. I didn't feel like I could really get close to the person, and so I didn't see the point. I didn't want just any old friends. I wanted BFFAAs, though I would settle for plain old BFFs. I was like those girls who ask how many children a man wants to have on the first date.

So I did what any person in my position would do. I lowered my standards. Which usually is a bad thing, I suppose, so maybe that's not the right way to put it. What happened is I determined that I needed to get over myself: be less quick to judge and stop thinking that everyone either had to be a bosom companion or nothing. There's a lot of room for middle ground. Just because I may never tell late-night sleepover secrets to someone doesn't mean that I can't gain something from a relationship with them. This seems like a lesson I should have learned a long time ago. Sometimes I feel like a very unfinished person for being twenty-seven years old.

In an effort to make myself a better person, preferably one with friends, I am making myself socialize. It is hard, but not for the reason I expected. I had come to believe that since I often chose not to be social, that meant that I wasn't any good at it. Actually, I can talk pretty easily to people. I can make a joke, listen to a story, even do small talk. But it's not my default state. Without forcing myself to socialize, I tend to go alone on my way, never noticing until much later that if pressed to come up with bridesmaid candidates, I'd struggle to name one. Whatever I might have been when I was younger, I am pretty classicly introverted now.

Since approaching strangers in stores and asking to join their Friends and Family plan seemed sad and likely ineffective, I turned to the internet. There is a web site called Meetup.com where you can join an online group. The online group is full of actual people, who organize evensts that you can then show up for in the actual, non-internet world. I'm sure I found it by Googling phrases like "How do I make friends" or "tired of drinking alone" or "Please, Google, I am so lonely." And so a couple of weeks ago, I went to the house of a complete stranger with a bottle of Petite Syrah and a bowl of black bean and corn salad, ready to meet ten more wine-bearing strangers. I was nervous, but oddly, not as nervous as I expected to be. I knew I could do this. It was awkward at first, and then again some in the middle, and just a little bit at the last. I did not make any instant BFFAAs. But I had fun, and so I signed up for a dinner and a trip to the roller derby. It's awkward, and it makes me feel sort of stretched emotionally. Whether any bosom companions will come out of it, I do not know. But I'm trying. I am back in the lunch line, telling jokes.

looking for converts.

Perhaps you've noticed that I haven't been posting yard sale recaps in the last few weeks. Or maybe you've haven't noticed as such, but you've been wandering around with a vague need to see a picture of a box of old stationery. I do not want you to think that it's because I haven't been yard saling. Please, never question my devotion to getting up early on my day off, driving around, and exchanging money for people's discarded goods. No, the problem is that my camera went on tour with my boyfriend. I could still write about the sales, but without pictures, I'd just be rambling on trying to describe the mini copper scuba diving helmet that I got for $2. While that might be a good writing exercise, I've never really liked any kind of exercise.

So rest assured that there are still yard sales happening in the world, and I am still going to them. In fact, I am happy to report that it is officially "the season." You probably have no idea how excited that makes me. Here, let me tell you, I am this excited: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yesterday, I had company on my morning out. I was hanging out with a couple of friends on Friday night, and they asked about my plans for the next day. Clearly, they don't know me all that well, because everyone knows that I have a standing date with the front lawns of strangers on Saturdays. When I told them, they wanted to come along.

I confess, dear readers, that I was reluctant about the idea. I am not opposed to having people come with me, in fact, I love the idea of converting people to the secondhand lifestyle. But I wasn't sure that these girls knew what they were in for. Were they prepared to get up early, paw through piles of crap, and drive all the way to Chapel Hill if that meant hitting a huge church sale when they were just starting to mark down prices?

But, hey, they were game. I showed up at their apartment at 6:50 AM and they were ready to go. We hit a church sale first off, and they both made some purchases. It was quite a good sale, which was lucky. Some people see my house full of treasures bought used and think that I find something amazing at every single sale I visit. But buying used is a hobby of patience - there are many days when I don't find much at all. I wanted this to be a good day so they would get enough of a taste of the possibilities to carry them through other sales which might not yield anything. But they seemed to be having a good time. I also had a good time, buying a cowbell and the aforementioned copper diving helmet. I also bought some things that are not inexplicable.

There was something else that I would have bought, but by the time I arrived, the beautiful dresser already had a SOLD tag on it, right next to the one that said "$40." I don't put much stock in getting to sales right when they open. I've never had any trouble finding junk to buy, and as for what was sold before I got there, I didn't see it, so I don't know what I'm missing. I've been looking for a dresser for a while, and this one would have been perfect. But you know what? I got there at only a few minutes after they opened. I suspect that someone working at the sale bought it. Which just goes to show that someone can still buy something before you, even if you are waiting when the doors open.

I only hope that they enjoy that dresser as much as I would have. A moment of silence, please, for the dresser that I did not buy. Thank you.

The rest of the day was decent. Alas, my friends were growing weary by 10, and so they went home. However, as they were leaving, they showed interest in coming along next week. I don't expect them to be as hard core about it as I am, but even if they only spend a couple Saturdays a year perusing yard sale offerings, that is a success in my book.

After they went on home, I headed out to Chapel Hill to hit a giant sale. No, really, it was HUGE. Which reminds me. Friday night, one of the girls was looking through CraigsList for sales. She saw an ad titled "HUGE YARD SALE," and said, "We should check that one out." Ah, poor sweet innocent newbie. I pointed out to her that they all said they were huge, but most of them just had a stack of baby clothes, some Dan Brown novels, and a table of five years worth of Pier 1 sales. Not to alienate any Dan Brown/Pier 1 readers with children out there, but it's just not my bag.

Anyway, this church sale wactually was HUGE, much HUGER than anyone having a single family sale could even aspire to. It was the kind of sale where they hand out maps so you can navigate to the different rooms, depending on whether you are interested in clothes or furniture or cooking gear. It was almost too big, as it was so crowded that there were lines queueing up outside various rooms. I spent ten minutes waiting to just look at the selection of accessories, as my desire to see all the stuff battled with my anxiety about being in large crowds. Then I didn't even buy any accessories, possibly because once inside the room I gave everything only a cursory glance in my haste to get out of the tiny room with too many people in it. I did buy several books, because there was absolutely no wait to get into that room. Let's not think too hard about what that indicates about the public.

Overall, a good day. I bought a lot more than what I've mentioned (pewter-handled forks, demitasse cups, old cigarette advertising sign, buttons, giant lamp that Josh will hate as soon as he sees it), and nothing was very expensive. And I introduced some people into my world, and hopefully they will come back to find many inexplicable treasures of their own.

the yanks are comin'!

I haven't done musicals in a while. You'd think with Josh gone it would be a twenty-four hour Gene Kelly extravaganza at my house. You'd be wrong. I have no explanation.

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
Here's the deal: Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell are showgirls go on a cruise to Europe where they get into mischief because of boys. Marilyn never met a rich man she didn't like, and Jane likes the charming and destitute kind. If she's into that, she should try dating a bass player. Jane spends the whole trip trying to keep Marilyn away from an old man who apparently owns half of South Africa (and therefore diamond mines). I wonder if it would have worked better if Jane had sat her down and explained the bloody impact made by the diamond mining industry. Nah.

I saw this movie before, a long time ago when I discovered that the Caldwell County Public Library had a video section. I didn't retain much from it. I found most of it pretty forgettable. Whether or not you know it, you may already be familiar with a scene from this movie. Madonna's video for "Material Girl" is a very obvious homage to a scene where Marilyn sings "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend," a song that was also featured in Moulin Rouge.

This movie is sort of feminist. But it's not really high-minded feminism, because it's about women who want to eliminate double standards by being allowed to behave as badly as men without being chastised. Marilyn defends her gold-digging by saying that men are allowed to go after pretty girls and no one accuses them of being shallow. So if she goes after a man with a lot of assets in exchange for her own special kind, what's the problem? Well, okay, that's one way to look at it. But shouldn't we just all be less shallow? Don't mind me. I'm not pretty enough to be shallow.

As an aside, this movie was based on a novel by Anita Loos, which I would much like to read if I can ever procure a copy. She had a very successful writing career when not so many women were in that field. According to Wikipedia, she wrote Gentlemen Prefer Blondes after seeing H.L. Mencken, noted smart guy who should know better, flip his lid over a buxom blonde. The Jane Russell character, she based on herself, surprise, surprise.

Singing and Dancing: Neither Jane nor Marilyn have great voices in the traditional sense. But that's why they're in this movie and not The Sound of Music; if they were dressed as nuns, you wouldn't even be able to see their bosoms! They both can sing and dance well enough, but that's not what gets them their roles. It sort of goes along with the movie's whole point: being really hot is useful. It can get you men and movie roles, and why shouldn't it?

There is a scene where Jane is singing while she walks through a room of men in tiny shorts doing dances that look like exercises. They were playing the U.S. men's Olympic team, who apparently do a lot of jazz hands. Maybe it was just a different time or maybe I'm being narrow, but I was struck by the fact that if any modern movie had that much man-flesh in it, it would labelled homo-erotic. Perhaps it was just more feminism: and here's a little something for the ladies.

Here is "Bye Bye Baby." I suppose I should have posted "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend," but I like this song better. When I worked at a restaurant in college, this song was on one of the CDs we played. I think it was Dean Martin's version. Anyway, one day a customer told me that this song was on repeat. Indeed, they were right. We had been listening to this one song for a couple of hours and hadn't even noticed because we were so used to hearing it over and over throughout the day. That story has no point, but I can't hear this song without retelling it. Sorry the quality is out of sync. If they did lip-sync, I promise it wasn't that obvious in the movie.



Will I Make Josh Watch It: No. I doubt I could get him to even watch the whole Madonna video.


Yankee Doodle Dandy
You would think that after watching an entire musical, I would know whether or not James Cagney can actually sing. Well, I don't. Because for most of the movie, he didn't so much sing as talk out the words. Which could be a directorial decision, or it could be an indication that Cagney sang about as well as Roseanne Barr (there's a reference from way back for you old-timers out there). But if it was the latter, why didn't they just cast someone who could, you know, sing?

This movie was a bio-pic about George M. Cohan, who wrote flag-waving songs like "Yankee Doodle Boy," "You're a Grand Ole Flag," and "Over There." You might say he was limited in his scope, and yet he is considered the father of American musical comedy. I personally would like to thank Mr. Cohan for his own contributions, which led to hundreds of movies that I might enjoy and write about. My boyfriend would probably rather that George had been an accountant. The movie had snippets of Cohan's musicals, which were mostly just songs very, very loosely connected by action. Seriously, they made Oklahoma! look plot-driven. I suppose as the genre has developed, writers have paid more attention to those annoying bits between the dancing.

Aside from starting up a whole new genre, Cohan also received the Congressional Gold Medal of Honor, the first artist to do so. It was given to him for contributions to morale during the first World War, and indeed there are lots of scenes of soldiers singing his songs. I like that we honor people like that, because it also acknowledges the importance of art itself.

Singing and Dancing: Like I said, Cagney didn't do much singing, though his dancing was much more impressive than I was expecting. But as a credit to Mr. Cohan, the songs were pretty good. Many of them were familiar to me, since I sang them in a fifth-grade concert. I wasn't all that familiar with "Over There," because when I'd heard it, it had been "Underwear." But I think it was my favorite. It made me feel all warm and patriotic inside when the soldiers marched and sang that the Yanks were comin'. America! Heck Yeah!

There is a scene where Cohan makes fun of Franklin Roosevelt. We have seen this before, back in Babes in Arms. It continues to fascinate me. I don't get the jokes, of course, because the everyman's perspective of FDR in the 30s is different from how he is seen now. I shouldn't be surprised. We make fun of the president now, so it's natural that people did it before, too. It's just...weird. I suppose it's the lack of hindsight in it. They're poking fun at what seems like minutiae to us, because that's the sort of daily thing that was in the papers for them. Meanwhile, I'm thinking they should show a little more respect. I suppose a hundred years from now, someone will be shocked to see a clip of Jay Leno making fun of the first black president's opening day pitch.

Here's a cute clip of Cagney like you might not have seen him before.


Also, if you're interested, you can see "Over There" on YouTube, but I can't embed it. THE YANKS ARE COMIN'!

Will I Make Josh Watch It: No. I think he might be disappointed to see Cagney dancing.


State Fair
State Fair, like Flower Drum Song, is one of those Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals that doesn't get a lot of play. Earlier, we determined that the reason for Flower Drum Song's obscurity was because modern eyes would view it as racist. State Fair is not racist, unless you would consider it racist to have the whole cast be lily white. No, it's just not very good. The best scene in the whole film is a pickle judging contest. Really.

Okay, fine, the movie isn't bad. I made it all the way through and I even was interested to see how it was going to turn out. I've seen a lot of movies where I would have been happy if the main characters had died, just so the thing would be over. I didn't want these people to die, they seemed like nice folks. The whole plot revolves around this little Iowa farm family going to the annual state fair. The dad has a prize pig, the mom has some blue ribbon pickles, and the teenage kids find romance. The romances are sort of...illicit, at least for 1945. I wasn't really sure where the movie was going with it. For a while I thought the tagline of the movie might be "What happens at the State Fair stays at the State Fair."

Singing and Dancing: You know, there wasn't that much dancing at all. The song that everyone always remembers is "It Might as Well Be Spring," which left me underwhelmed. I mean, it's pretty, but it's hard not to laugh at it. Here's this young girl, leaning languidly out the window, drowsily singing about how she's as jumpy on a puppet on a string. She didn't look jumpy, nor did she look as restless as a willow in a windstorm. I think the real gem was "All I Owe Ioway," a tribute to Iowa sung by some of the performers at the fair. It makes you wonder if they have a song for every state. It's a good song with clever wordplay. And I know you're wondering, so I'll just tell you: there is spelling in that song. Because Oscar Hammerstein just can't write a song about a state without spelling.

Unfortunately, no one else seems to agree with me, and "All I Owe Ioway" is not available online, except for some home videos of high school plays doing it. So fine, here's that stupid spring song. Just try not to laugh at her singing about being jumpy.


Will I Make Josh Watch It: No. I told him there was a song called "It's a Grand Night for Singing" and he groaned.

like that.

In Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, a sweet and charming but ultimately forgettable independent teen movie, the titular characters are taking the next, slightly naked, step in their budding romance. The step is implied, as the cameraman mysteriously loses interest in the pair and starts filming the scenery while we hear their dialogue. What comes next is the best exchange in the whole movie.

Norah (apologetic, embarrassed): I'm not pretty like that.
Nick (with wonder): What are you talking about? You're beautiful.

There are funnier lines, there are more clever lines, but Norah's is the best in the whole ninety minutes, solely because of those last two words: "like that." Surely I can't be the only person in the world who heard that line and felt resonance. That's what they wanted when they wrote that line. They wanted people like me to stand up, point at the TV, and say, "I relate to that."

And Nick's line is right, it's exactly the Right Thing to say and he says it with just the right amount of awe, and that's all we want in a romantic comedy. We want men to say the Right Thing. They're allowed to say the wrong thing a couple times roughly two-thirds in, because otherwise there is no conflict or drama. But when it counts, they have to say the Right Thing. If we wanted to hear men say the Wrong Thing, then I guess we'd just stay home and ask our boyfriends and husbands trick questions. I thought "awww" just like I was supposed to when he said it, but it's been a while since my viewing. Now, I'm thinking about those words, "like that."

Because there is pretty, and there is pretty like that.

Women are beautiful (Men are very nice, too, but this is not about them). I am convinced of the beauty of every woman I've ever met. All the girls that I hung out with in high school, I am certain they hated the way they looked. But I thought they were lovely. At first, they were regular-looking. You know. Ordinary people, though some were obviously more attractive than others. And then I got to know them and I would notice their individual and secret prettiness. On a good day, I could look in the mirror and see myself that way (did you know that I have perfectly sized lips?). On a bad day, I would see just another plain girl (one with crooked ears).

But then there were the girls who were pretty without you even getting to know them. Their prettiness was not a secret at all. They did not have to be nice or funny or smart or anything at all to be attractive, which was just so unfair. I resented them. I feared them, was intimidated by them. I imagined telling them off. I looked for signs of physical flaws, be it too-skinny ankles or a weak chin, anything at all. I think women stare a lot more at other women than they do at men. Us girls are constantly checking out the competition, trying to figure out where we stand. It can be quite exhausting.

At some point, the regular pretty get over not being pretty like that. You get to sixteen or eighteen (or twenty? thirty?) and realize that it's not going to get any better. You accept that everyone has different assets. You figure out your strengths and you begin to take pride in them. You hope that by having a wonderful personality, you will enable others to see your individual and secret prettiness. There are bound to be men out there who value substance. Surely one of them will like you. This is acceptance. It's still missing the point that you probably shouldn't tie your ego to what a man might think of you, but baby steps, please. Some women don't get to acceptance at all, and that's why we have plastic surgeons.

I had this acceptance pretty early, or at least I learned early on that I should look to my other qualities. I've known where my strengths lie for a long time, because my mother told me over and over. Once, back when I was a promising sophomore on the Varsity basketball team, my coach, who still thought I might yet get over my clumsiness (ha!), spoke in encouraging tones about my future. He said that with hard work and lots of practice, I could possibly get a scholarship to play basketball at a small private college near my hometown.

I gave him a funny look. My mother really stressed modesty and humility in our house (you have to do that when your kids are as awesome as hers are, poor woman), and I tried hard not to make it obvious that I thought that I was kinda smart. But I said, being very careful with my words, "I'm not counting on basketball to get into college." My expression could be best described as "knowing."

He paused, nodded silently before saying, "Yeah. Okay." He got it.

I could have said something similar to my girlfriends who wanted to teach me how to put on makeup: I'm not counting on my looks to get a man. You know, I probably did say that. And then they rolled their eyes and came after me with mascara.

Despite my preaching about acceptance and playing to your strengths, it's a lot easier getting over being mediocre at basketball than it is to get over being average-looking. Even after you mostly get over not being pretty like that, even after you've decided that you are completely awesome in other ways that are much less fleeting than beauty, a dark part of you is afraid that no one else will ever appreciate you for you. You wonder if anyone will ever notice your individual and secret prettiness, or if they will all be too busy looking at the girls who are pretty like that. And that's how you get Norah, who starts out okay, but gets prettier as the movie goes on without changing a thing, apologizing for the way she looks.

I'm going to tell you a super-special Sandra secret, so secret that I've never told anyone besides Josh, because I think it's nuts. So I'm going to put it on the internet to find out how nuts it is. When I assess other women, I have three things that I look at. The first is just straight up appearance. If I am prettier than that girl, I write her off as not a threat (a threat to what? I have no freaking idea). If I am not prettier, I move to the next thing, which is height. Being tall was one of the things that I claimed as part of my Sandra-ness when I determined that I wasn't pretty like that. That woman over there may be drop-dead gorgeous, but she'd need a chair to get stuff off the top cabinet shelf. Pshaw, what man wants that? (Interestingly enough, height also happened to be the only reason I ever made any basketball team.) And finally, there is my trump card, my brain. Since I'm just judging a complete stranger, there is no way I can tell how smart she is, so I simplify matters by just assuming that I'm smarter. Then I feel better, self-esteem crisis averted. One more rock bounces off my thick ego bubble.

Is this insane? Is it normal? Both? Isn't it neat how I came across as incredibly self-conscious and ridiculously arrogant all in one paragraph? It's probably 'cause I'm smart.

I am one of the confident ones, as you've probably figured out by now. And get this, I am proud of my own confidence - it is one of my strengths, boys like that about me - such that I am self-consious about admitting that I am self-conscious about my appearance. Josh was actually confused when he found out how not-really-that-confident I was about certain things, after he had come to think of me as a person who was completely sure of herself. He thought it was bizarre, which is sorta like Nick saying, "What are you talking about? You're beautiful."

I was at a bar for one of Josh's shows, the bar being a parade of people trying to convince other strangers that they are worthwhile. There were girls there who had spent hours getting ready, some who changed clothes three or four times, everyone trying very hard to be as attractive as possible. Oh yeah, and then there was me, who decided a long time ago that it was way easier to look like she didn't give a crap (and you get to feel superior to all those shallow people). Many of them were much prettier than I am, but most of them were average height or shorter, so I wasn't feeling threatened. A beautiful girl passed by, wearing something flimsy and entirely inappropriate for February; it looked fantastic on her. She was very close to my height, and I instinctively looked at her shoes, which were spiked heels. See, that's cheating, and I still win (I'm going to go back someday and erase these last paragraphs about the three levels of comparison, because I sound like a lunatic). I told Josh about it, while pointing out this knock-out gorgeous girl to my boyfriend, explained how my confidence remained intact because of her stilettos. He laughed, because it was silly, it's all so completely silly and I'm so glad that I have someone who knows crap like that about me and somehow doesn't run away. He leaned in and whispered, "Baby, they don't make shoes that make you smarter."

He gets it.

and this bird you cannot change.

Rule: It is no longer cool to request "Free Bird." It's been done and done to death. It's over. Stop it now. There is no longer any situation where it is amusing. Is it arrogance to state what is cool? Probably, so go ahead and resent me for it, but trust me on the "Free Bird." Give it a few years, let it die for a little while, and then you can bring it back.

Correllary: Since no one is listening to me, I'll go ahead and add that it is no longer cool to actually play "Free Bird" when someone who did not listen to me earlier requests it. It is less uncool if you are a band that would not traditionally play southern rock, say a steel drum band or string quartet, but that, too, has been done. Just ignore that guy, play some other Skynyrd song if you have to. Not "Sweet Home Alabama." Maybe "The Ballad of Curtis Loew."

Correllary: There is one time when it is acceptable to play "Free Bird," and that is when Artimus Pyle is your drummer. You have to play it straight then, not ironically, assuming you kids with your skinny jeans even know how to play a cover song non-ironically.

I'm sorry, Mr. Pyle, but I think I've changed. We met on a street in Asheville, NC several years ago, and I had no idea who you were. But my boyfriend did, and somehow he recognized you, even though I don't think he was particularly a Skynyrd fan. You were very friendly and could tell that I had no idea who you were, because I lack subtlety. You thought it was cute, and you told me not to change. Since then, I have remembered who you were, though I probably would not recognize you again unless you happened to be wearing the same black leather trenchcoat and cowboy hat. It rarely comes up, but I tell the story about meeting you sometimes, and I always make you sound like a real laid-back, nice guy.

As unlikely as it is, I now have two Artimus Pyle stories. I've met him on the streets of a mountain town and I've seen him play "Free Bird." Why should my path ever cross with that of Mr. Pyle, much less twice? Of all the famous people I could repeatedly run into, I might have picked someone else. I suppose he might have picked a different non-famous person as well. Sorry, Mr. Pyle, but it looks like it's you and me.

Josh's band was opening for another local band that they know, who was having a CD release show. Since it was a special occasion, they decided to go all out and get Artimus Pyle to play drums for them. Because that's what you do for special shows. You get obscure members of famous bands from long ago, and when people see your advertisements, they say, "That guy's still alive?" I don't know how they got him. Maybe their moms play bingo together. Maybe they sent him a Facebook message. Maybe they met him on the street and asked if he'd like to play.

Pyle's drum kit is impressive. I'm used to seeing the drum kits bought by hobby musicians or indulgent parents who hope their son will grow out of it soon. This one looked like it came from an 80s hair band music video. The cymbals were set up high, so the drummer would have to reach up to hit them. I asked Josh's drummer, Dave, about this, thinking maybe there was some sort of musical explanation, like it changed the sound when it was hit from a different angle. If there was a scientific explanation, Dave didn't know it. That's just how they used to do it, that's what used to be cool. Artimus also wore gloves, like the kind that golfers and NASCAR drivers wear. Is that necessary? Or does it just look cool?

Artimus liked the chimes. They're not a common feature on local band drum kits, either because they're an unnecessary expense or because they, too, are out of fashion. Dave has a woodblock and a cowbell, but no chimes. As for Artimus, I think he'd be lost without them. It was almost comical. As another opening band played, he set up his kit in the corner. He periodically ran his fingers through the chimes where he thought it might add something to the song. I wonder if those guys went home talking about how they needed more chimes in their songs. When Artimus played, there was a significant amount of chiming. After the show, people went up to him to have their picture taken so they could post on their blogs about how they met the guy from Skynyrd. As the cameras flashed, he would run his drumstick through the chimes, as if he thought you'd be able to hear them when you looked at the picture later. As for me, I will always hear the chimes whenever I look at a picture of Artimus Pyle.

It must be strange to be Artimus Pyle, like being that guy who told Buddy Holly he hoped his ol' plane crashed. He was in the crash that killed most of Skynyrd, and he crawled from the wreckage and hiked down the road with broken ribs to go get help. His would be more than just survivor's guilt. Because the long and successful career that he probably felt was in the bag had engine trouble and went down somewhere in Mississippi. Thirty years later, he's an oddity, invited to play drums for some band out of Greensboro, North Carolina. Me, I think I would feel a little bit haunted all the time, like there were ghosts on stage with me - the ghosts of my dead bandmates, the ghosts of the songs that was never written, the ghost of his lifetime fame. Maybe the chimes are to scare them all away.

And yet Artimus Pyle seems to be doing alright. He's had a while to get over it, or maybe musicians are much better adjusted person than we are led to believe. He gets paid to do what he loves and they treat him like a god. Pretty young girls come on stage to hug him, ring his chimes, and have their pictures taken. Maybe it's not the life he imagined when he was a young man, but for an old man, it's not so bad. He's probably pretty sick of playing "Free Bird," though.

men of a different era.

To be perfectly honest, I bought the book of old photos for the NASA pictures. Josh loves spacey stuff. We went to a fantabulous space museum in the middle of Kansas where he saw some astronaut jackets. He really wanted one, but they were ridiculously expensive. So he only bought some patches, which were still pretty pricey for what they were. Then when he got home, he went to the Army surplus store and bought a blue flight jacket for $40. He sewed the patches on himself, which I think is pretty cute. Maybe I'm just a sucker for his charms. Luckily, he seems to be a sucker for my charms, which even I have to admit have a limitied audience appeal. I only hope that everyone else in the world can find a sucker for their charms.

Anyway, I bought the photo album because there were some pictures of people in front of a NASA bus. I hoped that some of those people might be astronauts, but even if they were just engineers or administrators, that would be okay, too. Since I actually have no idea who they are, I can pretend whatever. What I like about this picture is how indicative of the time it is. Photos like this (and like all of them in the album) are like unintentional historical artifacts. There was still a space race going on. The general public was still interested in what might be up in the sky.


And the men! Men don't look like this anymore. They don't wear their pants like that, they don't stand that way, they don't ask for those haircuts, and they don't smoke cigarettes in pictures. These were men of a different era. I mean, probably, they acted just like men act now. Except they stub out their cigarettes before someone takes their picture.

hospital song.

Lying awake in my hospital room
Silas Creek Parkway is my only view.

-Ben Folds Five, "Hospital Song"

When I was a sophomore in high school, our boys' basketball team went to the state championship. This is not to be confused with our girls' basketball team, of which I was a member, which won maybe one game all year. I don't remember how many games, but I know there was at least one. It was my freshman year where we didn't win any. But that's a whole different story.

But the boys' team was good, and they were fun to watch. There was the serious point guard, the long-limbed center, the hot-shot three point shooter, the reliable power forward, and the scrappy guy who could play any position by force of sheer hustle. I remember them all now, even though it's been over a decade since I've seen most of them. Everyone knew who they were. I remember being sort of shy and flattered when any of them talked to me, a lowly sophomore on the second-worst girls' basketball team in the history of our school.

Their post-season stretched out long after we had been eliminated from the first round of the conference tournament, and my mom and I went to their games. Since the boys had played right after us all year long, she had seen most of their games, maybe a reward for sitting through another crushing defeat for her daughter. And then they were going to be in the state finals in Chapel Hill, three hours away. Of course, we would go. What could be better than watching a good team full of people you knew (or at least felt like you knew) play at the Dean Dome?

The evening before the Saturday afternoon game, we got a phone call from my brother, an hour away, saying that his pregnant wife's water had broken, still several weeks shy of her due date. It was already getting sort of late, but we got in the car and drove to Wilkesboro. As we pulled into the parking lot of the tiny rural hospital, we saw an ambulance leave, followed by the familiar silhouette of my brother's car. We managed to flag him down, and he told us that they were taking my sister-in-law to the hospital in Winston-Salem.

So we drove yet another hour to Forsyth Medical Center on Silas Creek Parkway. And nothing much happened all night. We stayed in the waiting room. I pushed two stiff armed chairs together front-to-front and curled up in an attempt to sleep. At some point, I think it must have been in the morning because I remember the curtains being closed to block the sunlight, we went in to see my sister-in-law. It's probably obvious for me to even mention it, but she seemed to be in pain, like it was taking all her concentration to just get through it. My brother sat anxiously beside her bed, holding her hand and stroking her hair. I don't think I'd ever seen such tenderness. I felt sort of irrelevant, just standing there, sixteen years old and not a clue in the world.

And then we left, to drive one more hour. From the dim and quiet tension of a hospital room to the bright and loud, yet also irrelevant, tension of a state basketball championship in the Dean Dome.

We lost the game. It wasn't even close.

By the time we got back to the hospital, more of my siblings were there. The baby was born, but so tiny and with a pair of lungs that were not formed enough to do the job of keeping even so small a thing alive. They put him in a special little incubator to keep the world out and give God a chance to finish knitting him outside the womb. Another brother embraced and consoled the man whose son had arrived but whose stay wasn't yet certain. Again, I saw tenderness, a side to my big brothers that I had never seen before, or maybe just had never noticed. Years later, I would listen to a coworker tell about when his son was born premature. Though it was never stated outright, the sense of utter helplessness was clear to me and to the other men who listened with complete understanding on their faces. I thought about my brother and the other side of each birth story.

A couple of weekends ago, the boys' basketball team from my old high school went to the state championship. They lost; it was even less close than before. I did not know any of their names, and I was not at the game. Instead, I was at my brother's house to celebrate my nephew's eleventh birthday. He was cute and robust and tan and also kind of a smart-aleck. He played with the little kids, and then sat with the adults. His little sister gave him a tooth in a jam jar, for which he thanked her sweetly, though he clearly thought it was pretty weird. My mom and I reminisced about spending the night at the hospital before going to the basketball game.

I knew then that there was a story to write here, but I wasn't sure what it would be about: the Dean Dome, unfinished lungs, Silas Creek Parkway, fatherhood, a tooth in a jar. Now I've written it and some themes came out that I wasn't expecting, but I'm still not sure what the point is. So take what you want. But Happy Birthday, Sidney. Keep that jar in a safe place.

beouf le noir.

Josh's mom used to be a French teacher and is otherwise a bonafide francophile. I'm used to hanging around people who are enthusiastic about knowledge in some way or another (i.e. dorks), but this fascination with a whole country is sort of new to me. She often uses something from the language or history of France to illustrate a point. There are smatterings of French words spoken in her house. When he was growing up, if ever a curse word slipped through his lips, she would admonish him "En Français!" Remember, kids, cursing is okay when it's in a pretty language. And if ever you say a French or French-derived word in front of her, she will repeat it quietly, with the correct pronunciation, all the while encouraging you to please go on. I have chosen not to be irritated by this habit (and it was a conscious choice), because I am not convinced that she even realizes she's doing it. It feels like being corrected to me, but I think she's probably just enthusiastic. We should all be so enthusiastic about learning.

She also apparently did a lot of French cooking when Josh was growing up. Once, when we were there for just a regular weekend dinner, nothing special, we had duck à l'orange. I thought that was just something made-up that sounded French that they served in Daffy Duck cartoons. But no, it's a real thing. I'm not sure that he really appreciated the cultural aspect of his childhood dinners. You can try to feed a kid duck à l'orange, but he's just going to ask for les saucisses de Vienna.

Once, Josh mentioned that he thought I made an effort to make French food because I thought he craved it as a result of his childhood. He used the quiche Lorraine as an example. He further stated that I shouldn't try to cook like his mother, that I should develop my own style. Considering I hadn't really been trying to make French-style dishes, I wasn't sure how to take this comment. Perhaps it was a slam on my quiche. He's very well-versed in subtlety, while I often don't even realize that he might have meant something deeper until weeks later (like when I happen to use it in a blog entry). He better learn to speak more plainly, or he'll be getting quiche for a long time.

All that being said, here is something that I have been approved to make again and again. It's beouf bourguignon. It is probably nothing like real beouf bourguignon for many reasons, one of which is that it is made in the crock pot. In recognition of that and in honor of my hometown of Lenoir, we call it beouf le noir. That phrase probably makes no sense in French, but there's been no one to correct me. It's delicious and fancy, so you could serve this to your boyfriend's mother. Just be sure to transfer it from the crock pot into a Dutch oven made by a French company before you serve it.

Beouf Le Noir

first round.

Several times Thursday night, I almost went to bed before the basketball was over. But I stayed up, though my eyelids grew droopy, because Wake Forest needed me to. They never seemed to be quite able to pull away from Texas. They got ahead for a while, but then the Longhorns rallied and made it a close game again. Though I try to soak up as much March Madness as possible every year, I was sleepy. If it hadn't been an ACC team, one that was in a town where I lived for two years, one that was the hometown team of the man I love, I would have called it a night before halftime.

If you haven't caught on yet, this is my annual post about sports. Even though I feel like there is really nothing left for me to say about the NCAA tournament, I feel compelled to write about it every year. Maybe because it so thoroughly engages me for several weekends in a row. To not write about it would be denying the part of me that truly loves college basketball. So while I usually put off mentioning it for days, even weeks, because I am sure I haven't any words left, I'm going to go ahead and get this out of the way.

There is a special place in my heart for the first weekend of the tournament. It's a weird kind of thing to keep in your heart, and there are many other, more deserving things which occupy greater areas. But there it is, maybe in a little out of the way corner next to a valve, that place where I keep my love for things like very specific parts of sporting events.

I love the first weekend, because of the palpable excitement. There's been mounting anticipation all week, from the conference tournaments the previous weekend, to when they announce the pairings on Sunday, through the three and a half days of speculation and trash talk and bracket-filling, and then FINALLY! It's here! It's noon on Thursday and it's started and everyone is bursting with energy. The players seem like those Spanish bulls that have just been let out of the gate, here they come!

I love the first weekend, because of the underdogs. Next weekend, after two rounds, there will likely still be a couple of low-ranked teams hanging around. Some of them make it through the first round, and some of those fall in the second. By the fourth round, there's usually only one left, and they get called the season's Cinderella. But in this first two days of non-stop basketball, there are many little guys to root for. They seem so happy to be there at all, playing against guys they've been watching on TV all season. You admire their pluck, their courage, their audacity to dare pose a threat to some nationally ranked team. And unless they are taking on your team, you really really want them to win. They seem to deserve it for sheer gumption.

I love the first weekend, because there are just so many games. From noon to midnight, there are games, sixteen in one day. When I tune in (God bless cbssports.com), maybe I've never even heard of one of the teams, but a few minutes later, I am inexplicably pulling for them as if they were my own hometown heroes. I'll tell you a secret: I watched the Villanova/Robert Morris game from my cubicle. It was so exciting: double overtime! I might have been more secretive about it if half the office wasn't blatantly doing the same thing.

And so Thursday night, the very first night of this year's big dance, I made myself stay up, because the first round of the NCAA tournament only happens two days a year. Even as midnight passed and I really wanted to just go upstairs to bed, I stayed next to my laptop. Even as Wake Forest pulled ahead by twelve points, I stayed, and it was again a one point game within a couple of minutes. I thought of my mom, whose devotion to the Atlantic Coast Converence could never be questioned, but who has a hard time making it through any game that extends into the nine o'clock hour. I am only twenty-seven years old, and I don't care if I did give up caffeine this week (again), I am still too young to give up on watching an exciting ball game with a team that I do care about just because I have to go to work in the morning.

And then Ishmael Smith, who I had never heard of before but who got me thinking that Ishmael is really kind of a cool name, made that shot with a couple seconds to go. And I was very awake and screaming. It was all over, they won, and I thought hard about watching the end of the Montana/New Mexico game. But I went up to bed, later than usual, but totally, totally worth it.

making work pay.

Josh should just fire his accountant.

He received a letter from the IRS yesterday. While he's been gone, I've been saving all his mail in a special place or maybe wherever it lands when I come in the door. I haven't been opening it, because I was taught that opening other people's mail is a federal offense. But when I saw the IRS letter, I opened it. Which is funny, because that rule about not opening the mail of others was probably intended to protect things like sensitive communications from government agencies, rather than pleas for him to come back to AllState, which I do not open. I could have called him first to verify whether it was okay for me to open his IRS letter, but instead I asked his accountant, and she said it was totally fine.

The IRS wrote him to say that they have amended his 2009 return. To give him more money. Yes, they noticed in their careful analysis of his return that he was eligible for the Making Work Pay tax credit, which, when applied, will nearly double his refund this year. If in the future he wishes to claim the Making Work Pay tax credit, he'll want to attach Schedule M and enter the resulting amount on line 63 of Form 1040. Thank you and have a nice day, from your friends at the Internal Revenue Service, a kinder and gentler agency.

As soon as I read this bit of another person's mail, I headed to the internet to find more about this Schedule M. It's apparently part of the recovery act. I then checked his Form 1040, line 63 and verified that it did say something about a credit and I had entered a nice, round zero on that line. I know that I did not even look up what that line was talking about in the instructions. Why? Because I had looked up half a dozen other possible credits and they had been about farming or displaced persons or being blind. In other words, they had nothing to do with him. And so when I saw "Making Work Pay," I assumed that was one of those things that was for Other People.

As an aside, what kind of stupid name is "Making Work Pay?" I mean, doesn't work already pay? Isn't that why we do it? Isn't that why we have to pay taxes, because we did work and then got paid for it?

Okay, I'm only griping because I'm feeling a little embarrassed at missing the credit in the first place. This happened last year, too, when I managed to miss the fact that he qualified for the Earned Income Credit (as opposed to the Stolen Income Credit, I guess). And the IRS sent him a letter and some more money. I am grateful that the IRS knows what it's doing, that it's nice enough to correct mistakes in our favor that we didn't know we'd made. It could just keep our money and we'd never know the difference. But it takes the high road, sends us our money, and makes our accountants look foolish.

As it happens, I am also eligible for the Making Work Pay tax credit, and I am quite sure that I did not claim it on my return. I should fire my accountant as well.

popper time.

There are certain things that I make that Josh loves so much he requests the recipe. Which is sort of odd, really. Perhaps he is plotting to leave me, but he can't bear to live without, for example, chocolate pie, so he has to be able to make it for himself while he waits for the next poor sucker to fall for his blue-gray eyes, dazzling smile, and impressive command of the English language. Each time he gets ready to go, his duffel bag all packed for the road, a note telling me where I can send his books, I go and make one more dish that he can't live without now that I've brought it into his life.

He is generally interested in the cooking process. Sometimes he helps, sometimes he does most of the work while I direct, sometimes he asks what's in it while he eats it. But then there are times when he wants to see the actual recipe, wants to do all the leg-work, making mental notes about baking times and measurements. It would be easy for me to just make it, but he is there, insisting, like a little kid who is aching to be in control of his own milk-pouring destiny. I've not figured out the difference between the things he wants to be able to make for himself and the things that he wants me to make for him over and over again. There is something special about his I-do-it recipes, something to do with the crossroads of yumminess and snackiness. The good thing is that once a recipe goes into that category, it is his forever. He is in charge of pizzas and french fried potatoes in our house. I could still make those things, of course, but he's got the steps all memorized. I'd have to go look it up, and the cookbook is all the way across the room, and honey, why don't you just do it?

All this brings me to a couple of weeks ago, when I called him after work. The band was in Kentucky, staying at a friend's house while in between shows in Knoxville and Cincinnati. At some point, he said he had to get off the phone, because he had to "go make more poppers."

"Poppers? Like we make here?"

"Yeah."

"You made them for everybody?"

"Yeah."

"You are so cute." I mean, really, isn't that kind of adorable? Am I the only sucker in the room?

Poppers are the most recent of the I-do-it recipes. It is a Pioneer Woman recipe, and it has three ingredients. The recipe in her cookbook is different from the one on her website. She adds cheddar and barbeque sauce and suggests some other variations. I'm going to make them that way one day, I promise. Out of respect for the Pioneer Woman, I will try each and every variation. But when we decide that we want poppers, that all seems like too much work when the recipe we know is so simple and so good. The first time we made them, it was as an appetizer to a bigger meal. But then we ate all the poppers and none of the meal. Then there were tummyaches. Delicious, bacon-wrapped tummyaches. Since then, we have managed to make them and resist the urge to eat them all. They store well in the fridge and are good cold the next day. If ever I am invited somewhere where I might be required to bring an appetizer, then, my friends, it will be Popper Time, which is like Hammer Time, but stuffed with cream cheese and wrapped in bacon and without parachute pants. Okay, fine, it's nothing like Hammer Time at all. But it could be.

Obviously, there is a hotness factor, what with the jalapenos. But you can find mild peppers. We get ours in a big pack at Aldi, where the hotness varies wildly from one pepper to the next. When I eat one, I first take a tiny lick on the pepper part to verify the spicy level. If it's too hot, I put it back on the plate, say it's for him, and then try the next one. He must really love me, because he's bringing his blue-gray eyes and dazzling smile, and I'm making him eat things that I have pre-licked. He's probably not planning to leave me. Phew!

I do not like the name "poppers." Even the Pioneer Woman doesn't seem to know what to call them, referring to them as Bacon-Wrapped Jalapeno Thingies. Surely we can find something better, something that doesn't take longer to say than to make the dish and yet doesn't sound like something that might be brought to you by a guy wearing 37 pieces of flare. I am open for suggestions.

But for now, here is the recipe. Now go make yourself a tummyache. Then teach a man to do it, so he can be in charge of his own tummyache destiny.

detritus.

I will tell anyone that will listen that my very favorite kind of yard sale is a church yard sale in an established, wealthy neighborhood. It's all about the stuff. Church sales are the best anyway, because it combines the stuff from lots of different families, which means greater volume of stuff. Wealthy neighborhoods are going to have higher-quality (and more) stuff. Older, established neighborhoods have older and more interesting stuff, because the people didn't just move in the year before. Also, the prices are usually good, because chances are that someone there has been to a yard sale or held one before, so they what to charge for the stuff. Plus, there is that grand time when they tell you to just stuff a bag for a dollar.

Stuff stuff stuff. The word has lost all meaning.

Anyway, while I still scour the papers for church sale ads, I am developing a growing appreciation for estate sales. They are getting me through the cold, hard winter, like the Regimental Camp Followers at Valley Forge. Indeed, there is often a lot of stuff at an estate sale, since you're selling most everything that a person owned at time of death. Sure, there is antique furniture and china sets and heirloom jewelry. It's frequently beautiful and I enjoy having the opportunity to see valuable and expensive things that I don't ordinarily come across. But the real appeal to me is that they're selling things that most people wouldn't ever think to sell.

Old stationery is a favorite of mine, as I'm sure you're sick of hearing. I can imagine a meeting of the estate sale companies of Raleigh, where they discussed what was worth selling. Someone keeps coming across boxes of old note cards in attics of dead grandmothers and wonders whether it's even worth slapping a price tag on them. The others tell him the fabled tale of Stationery Lady, who will come to your sale, pick out less than $10 worth of stuff, and then inquire about any stationery, if she hasn't found it already.

You will also all know by now that I am a big fan of owning your own crazy, for instance by imagining that competing estate sale companies not only have meetings, they talk about who buys the cheap items and give them nicknames.

Aside from stationery, there are old calenders, the daily dishes, the framed cross-stitch that hung in the bathroom. They are the things that children of the deceased remember fondly and associate with that house, but they are too inexpensive and everyday to be considered heirlooms. They are detritus, the things that humans buy and use and discard without really noticing. I love these things. I love their everyday-ness, their inconspicuous-ness, their history. These are the things that will tell future archeologists more about how people lived than the silver tea sets that only the rich people could afford to buy but not ever use.

Anyway, I am writing all this because I came across some really great examples of detritus at an estate sale recently. While someone else was dickering over the price of the mid-century modern black leather sofa set (which was gorgeous), I was spending two dollars on a cheap photo album full of black and white 8x10s. I've scanned some of the pictures in to share with you guys(one at a time so that I can stretch it out over lots of posts so that I look more prolific). None of the pictures are labelled, so what I know about them is only what I can guess from looking at them. Let's all imagine stories about them together, shall we?

This is the very first picture in the album. The cover actually came off and so this lady stares up at me from the coffee table.

Who is she? Is this shot posed or candid? A lot of the shots in the books appear to be publicity shots of models, but then there are some that are obviously family photos. Maybe this was taken for use in a gardening calendar sponsored by the local Jaycees. Yup, that's it. I've decided.

inconvenience foods.

There was a question on a frugality/cooking blog, asking when convenience foods were worth the money.

And I've thought about this.

And thought some more.

Really, I'm struggling here.

Thinking hard. Got a headache.

Now, what constitutes as a convenience food is a sliding scale. There are some things which most everyone can agree are convenience foods, like frozen pizzas or Hot Pockets. Most people think of things that are easy to prepare and nutritionally bankrupt. But you could argue that canned vegetables, Wonderbread, and sausage fall in that category, too. After all, you can make all of those things yourself - can your own veggies, bake your own bread, grind your own sausage. I suppose any time the ingredients could possibly be more raw, then you are working with a convenience food. For instance, my sisters mill their own wheat. They must think I'm a sucker every time I buy a bag of flour. That's me, always taking the easy way out.

I find that the more I cook, the more raw my food starts out. I used to eat a lot of frozen pizza. Sometimes, on special occasions, I would splurge on a take-and-bake pizza, which are those doughy ones with big vegetable pieces that you find in the deli department. They actually have expiration dates. Somewhere along the line, I started making my own pizzas, and I haven't gone back. I could feel good about myself for that - I'm saving money and eating something much better for me. And yet, I'm putting prepackaged pepperoni on my homemade pizza. You know what? It's not even kept in the refrigerated section of the store. It's not much different from Vienna sausages.

So after the homemade pizza, I started cutting my own french fries from potatoes, then pie crusts, then it was hamburger and hot dog buns (and bread in general), and recently spaghetti sauce. Discovering that you can roll your own can be liberating, but also a little sad, because you can't go back. You are a changed person, and the person you used to be, who was happy buying Ragu, is dead and gone.

I miss that old me sometimes. My laziness kicks in, and I decide that I just want hot dogs and fries for dinner. Well, it's forty minutes bake time for the fries. Oh, and whoops, no buns, so that's an extra hour I have to factor in making the buns, and really they should go in the oven before the fries so the potatoes will be hot. True, it's only like fifteen minutes of actual work, the rest is baking or rising time. But it is delayed gratification, and I want it now. But then I think about driving to the store to pay money to get something that won't taste as good, and I get out the flour. It's the same with pie crusts. I hate rolling out pie crust. If Hell is tailored to each individual, then mine would be endlessly rolling out pie crusts. I keep waiting for the day when I will be good at it, when I won't want to cry in frustration as the darn thing rips again. And they sell these crusts in the dairy section that are all rolled up, ready to just unwrap into your pie plate and bake. But I can't buy them, because I know that mine tastes better. Perhaps it is the flavor of my tears.

Or maybe not, because I can't handle salt the way I used to; making my own food has ruined my taste it. You may not have noticed, but most processed foods contain a lot of salt. Check out a nutrition label here or there, or don't, if you don't want to know. When you make things from scratch, you don't add that salt. When you eat that same scratch food every day, your tolerance for salt goes down. Then you eat some canned soup, your tongue swells up and you die of thirst. This happened first with Josh, who told me to cut the salt in everything I made. I thought he was being a salt sissy. Then one day, I ate at someone's house, who served soup, and the salt was the only thing I could taste. Everyone else ate it up and thought it was awesome. I felt like I was tasting one of those brown salt licks we had in the goat pen at my parents' house (not that I ever, ever licked one of those as a child, no sir). I am not anti-salt. God bless salt, I say. There are times when a little salt makes a world of difference. But it's not all the time. Just think: if we had discovered that nutmeg, rather than salt, was a great preservative, then Hot Pockets would taste like pumpkin pie.

I am not immune to the lure of convenience. I, too, am lazy. I sit back and reflect on the good ole days, when I just unwrapped a pie crust, shoved it in the oven, and then went to play with my belly button for an hour. But these kinds of foods have their consequences, and it's in two areas that hit me really, really hard: cost and taste. They're expensive, and they don't taste as good. My mother trained me to always look for the cheaper option, and my tongue tells me that tastier is better. There's some sort of health aspect, I've heard, but to be honest, I don't care. Maybe I will someday, and I surely will use that as an argument when trying to convince someone that they should really try making their own soup rather than opening that there can. But truly, it's not something that would convince me. If convenience foods all tasted better and were cheaper than their homemade counterparts, then I'd ask you to please pass the french toast sticks.

There are ways to make inconvenient foods less so. That CraigsList freezer was one of the best things I've ever bought. If I wanted to make hot dogs for dinner tonight, I would have the rolls all ready, because I made a double batch last time. I'd even have homemade chili to go on top, frozen in one and a half cup servings (which is about right for a pack of 8 dogs). Or if I wanted the ease of a can of soup, I have five different varieties in freezer bags, ready to be unthawed. It's not that homemade food is really all that inconvenient, they just take a little more thinking ahead. It's easy for me to say that, of course, I don't have kids. Hopefully by the time I do, I'll have all this stuff down to a science. Or I'll just come back and delete this post after I'm done putting 30 boxes of Hot Pockets in the freezer.

I really and truly believe that the big selling point of convenience foods is intimidation. I think that if more people realized how easy it is to prepare food that tastes that much better, costs less, and is better for them, the Hot Pocket company would go out of business. People think it's hard to do it yourself. Sometimes, it is. There are some things that I will likely never make from scratch. I tried making pasta once and it was a fiasco. I've cooked dried beans rather than used cans, and I'm not sure it was worth it (planning on trying again, though). But some things should be made from actual ingredients: mashed potato flakes are a sacrilege. Homemade soup is only a crockpot, half a dozen canned goods, and eight hours away. You decide where your own line is.

I am advocating the middle path. Convenience foods are a good idea. Even a Hot Pocket every once in a while is not going to kill you. It will remind you why you don't eat them more often. And some things which could be called convenience foods are actually pretty good. They allow people without gardens to have vegetables out of season and people who want a sandwich to use mayonnaise without breaking out the blender or knowing what "emulsifying" means. But when you start sacrificing all the taste and nutrition for convenience, that's a problem. It defeats the purpose of food. Guys, food is awesome. It tastes really super good, and, get this, it keeps you alive. Josh said once that making food delicious was part of God's plan to give us free will. Animals eat because their most innate drive is to survive. Humans have higher thinking, which means we can just decide to starve ourselves (and we sometimes do). And I was just about to starve myself, but, hold on, is that pie?

So really, what I'm saying here is: Food good. Here's to food, both convenient and not.

ginger, soy sauce, and ketchup.

Josh has mentioned several times that he would like me to make more Chinese food. He even bought me a cookbook once at a yard sale, The Thousand Recipe Chinese Cookbook. I think I've made one thing out of, egg drop soup (which I did because I truly love egg drop soup, another exception to my overall ho-hum attitude about eggs). Mostly, I'm resistant to this idea. For one thing, I'm pretty ambivalent to Chinese food as I know it. It's alright once in a while, but I don't go out of my way for it. Secondly, I associate it with Josh's Chinese ex-girlfriend.

Jealousy is one of the stupidest emotions I've ever known. When you start getting mad at your boyfriend for using chopsticks, then you know you're dealing with something that can't be fought with logic. Thankfully, I am mostly passed all that. Chopsticks do not bother me. In fact, I even have a set of them that did not come from a take-out place; they're very useful for poking blue cheese dressing through a funnel. Despite this great personal progress, during those times when he requests Chinese food, I still sometimes hear that small voice inside me that wonders if he thinks having a half-Kansan girlfriend isn't very exotic.

But sometimes I get over myself and I make Chinese food, or at least American food with ginger and soy sauce. Because then his gratitude is such that it seems silly to ever worry about some other girl.

Last week, I made Szechwan Shrimp. He ate his helping in about thirty seconds, and it only took that long because he stopped three times to tell me how awesome it was. Aw, shucks. Then he went and got more. He would have eaten the whole thing, except that he thought that I needed some to take to work the next day. So this one is going straight into the regular rotation. I doubt it has much to do with acutal Szechwan cuisine, what with the presence of ketchup, but who cares? What is a cultural melting pot for if not to add ketchup to ethnic food?

Szechwan Shrimp
Adapted from Allrecipes

• 1 onion, chopped into square inch pieces


• 3 celery stalks, chopped into inch-long pieces


• 3 carrots, cut into long, thin pieces (1.5 in x 1/8 in)


• 4 cloves garlic, minced (optional)


• 1 lb. raw shrimp, peeled with tails removed


• cajun seasoning (optional)


• soy sauce (optional)


• olive oil

Sauce

• 3/4 c water


• 3/8 c ketchup


• 3 T soy sauce


• 1/8 c cornstarch


• 3 t honey


• 1 1/4 t crushed red pepper


• 3/4 t ground ginger

Sprinkle cajun seasoning and soy sauce on shrimp, stir to coat. Mix up sauce, set aside.

Cook vegetables and garlic in olive oil until tender on the outside, but firm on the inside. Add shrimp to skillet. Add sauce to skillet and mix to coat. Continue cooking until sauce is thickened and shrimp are cooked through. Serve over rice.


Notes: You could make this with chicken, I bet. For those of you who don't like a meal to clear your sinuses, then cut down on the red pepper. This is what I would call very spicy, on the verge of too spicy. Josh's tolerance is much higher than mine, but he didn't add any hot sauce, which indicates that he thinks it's about right. You'll notice that this is reasonably healthy, which was a total accident, I promise. It's also quick. The whole thing took me forty-five minutes, and that's just because I'm a slow vegetable chopper.

I marked the soy sauce and cajun seasoning as optional because I just added those things on a whim because I knew the shrimp would have to sit in a bowl in the fridge for a while. I have no idea how much they actually added. Also, the garlic is optional because I forgot to add it. But you should add it, because garlic is delicious. You should always add things which are delicious.

compassion at the farmhouse.

I invited some people from work to Josh's show last week. I try to do that from time to time so I look like a supportive girlfriend. Whether or not any of them show up, I did my part. The show was at the Farmhouse, and so in my invitation, I wanted to be sure that they knew what they were getting into before they signed up to come. Some of Josh's coworkers came to a show at the Farmhouse once and then left within ten minutes or so. It's not for everyone.

My email invitation included the following disclaimer:

WARNING: the Farmhouse is a dive. It will be crowded and full of drunk people, some of them homeless. The floor will be sticky. If you're cool with that, then come on down. The beer is bad and cheap and plentiful.

I can't imagine why they didn't show.

Some people love the Farmhouse, and I don't get it. I don't mind that it's a dive; I can enjoy a little bohemian (in other words, poor) chic. The sticky floors are gross, but that never kept me away from the $1.50 theatre. No, the Farmhouse makes me profoundly sad. Not just because there are homeless drunks in there, but because a lot of the other people seem to be on various stages of their own downward spirals. Too many regulars seem determined to drink themselves to death or die trying.

But I didn't come here today to talk about the deadened stares of the patrons sitting at the bar. I came here to tell a heartwarming story. No, really.

At the Farmhouse Friday night, I saw an old man selling Girl Scout cookies. I didn't recognize the guy exactly. He looked like a lot of Farmhouse regulars, old and weathered, aged by something other than time. Whether I'd seen him before, I couldn't say. He pulled out a huge cardboard box full of smaller, cookie-filled boxes, each brightly-colored and covered in slogans about building self-esteem and positive role models. He gave a box of thin mints to a friend of mine, who gave him $3.50. It was so surreal that I wasn't even sure that I'd seen it. I swear, I'd only had one PBR.

I asked the girl about it, and she told me about this man. He was, as she put it, "borderline homeless." I'm not sure what that means, it seems like you either have a home or you don't. Maybe that's a common misconception of the homed. I think that it means that he does not have a home, but that he knows a lot of people who will let him crash on the couch or he has a car where he can sleep. It means that he is not sleeping on the pavement. He manages to earn a little money doing odd jobs. Apparently, he is a hard worker. And a hard drinker. I suppose there is something to be said for giving everything you do your all.

Whatever his home or drinking status, he does have a family, a daughter who also has a daughter. He carries pictures of them both in his pocket and pulls them out to show around to people he meets at the Farmhouse. Personally, I admire his daughter. No one would blame her if she shielded her kids from her father. But she lets them have a relationship with him, because he is family, even if he has made (and continues to make) bad decisions. Done right, there is a strong lesson in compassion in having a homeless grandfather. A few weeks ago, about the time that one of my coworkers left a cookie sales sheet in the break room, this old guy mentioned to his friends at the bar that his granddaughter was a Girl Scout. It bothered him that he couldn't do much for his family, particularly this sweet little girl who loved him even though he was, well, a bum.

It started with one person, maybe the bartender, maybe someone sitting a few feet away. They told him they would buy a box of cookies. Maybe he even had the official Girls Scout Cookie Sales Sheet, or maybe he borrowed a sheet of notebook paper from behind the bar. Someone else signed up for two boxes of the peanut butter ones, and another asked for those stripey ones with the coconut. By the end of the evening, he had sold nearly fifty boxes of cookies for his granddaughter, and he was crying.

Isn't that the most beautiful story of a homeless guy selling Girl Scout cookies in a bar that you've ever heard?

Maybe this is the lesson of the Farmhouse. It makes people like me, who didn't even know there were shades of gray between having a home and not, have a relationship with cookie-selling drunks. Him and the other regulars, like the guy who sells wire sculptures or that other one who has a bicycle. They are not merely homeless alcoholics, but somehow they have lives. If they actually did nothing but drink on the street all the time, they'd be dead. Even if the things they do are done to raise money to buy booze, well, it's something. It's hard to see it, but somehow, there's hope in that. It's little and kind of beat-up, but hope nonetheless. And if there is hope for the old guys, then there is hope for the young ones who still have smooth faces and apartments but that same focusless gaze as they order another round. If I can see them all as just people, then the Farmhouse won't seem like a parade of horrors. They're just people.

I am not condoning uncontrolled drinking, I'm really really not. But no one has a monopoly on bad choices. Even if my flaws and weaknesses are unlikely to ever leave me on the streets, that's only my good fortune. Having a home doesn't mean you can't be miserable and alone.

Somehow, the Farmhouse, with its sticky floors and burned-out toilet seats, is teaching me compassion. It is a strange, strange world.

shoo.

I am not close to Dave's girlfriend. I like her a lot, and I enjoy her company, but we are not close. Maybe because the only times we ever see each other are at bars where our boyfriends are playing music. It's a little loud for heart-to-hearts. Perhaps we should take this up with the band.

So I was a little surprised when she pulled me aside with a conspiratorial whisper. It must have been in the break between a song, or maybe she was actually shouting, but it just seemed like a whisper, as if she were embarrassed to have to discuss a personal topic.

"Hey, do you, like, ever worry when they leave?"

This was last Friday, at the local show meant to send the band on their national tour. Two nights later, I made granola bars and wrapped them each in plastic wrap. I think I put too many chocolate chips in, but my tester disagreed. And then the afternoon after that, he took his bag of granola bars, his phone charger, and probably a bunch of other things, too, and headed toward the first stop, Knoxville, Tennessee. I did not cry when we said goodbye. I did not grumble about the eight weeks that would pass before I saw him again. I was an excellent imitation of a supportive girlfriend. And it came mostly naturally.

But back to last Friday, when they were very much still here, evidence of which was blaring into my ears. While I might have accepted the idea of his upcoming absence and was even dealing with it like a mature adult, it was still at the forefront of my mind. And so I knew exactly what she was asking.

"Of course." Are you kidding me? My boyfriend is leaving for two months to go to bars all over the country and meet girls with low self-esteem and high blood alcohol levels. I'd have to be stupid not to realize that many men would be singing "I've Got a Golden Ticket" as they waved goodbye, eating my chocolatey granola bars. I trust him, but sometimes a little voice tells me that I'm incredibly naive to believe any man, no matter how wonderful I think this particular one is, can resist that kind of temptation. But these are just silly nagging doubts that I shoo away. If you shoo something away enough, eventually it stops coming back.

"Oh thank goodness." Her relief was visible. She may have been scared to ask me, in case I reported that it had never even occurred to me that my boyfriend could hook up with girls in a variety of cities across the midwest and along the west coast and probably never get caught. I wondered if she saw me and Josh as a model couple, an example of a stable relationship where both parties were always confident in the other's love and fidelity. Maybe she trusted Josh when she wasn't so sure she trusted Dave. If even Sandra worried about Josh, then hers were not an indication of her own insanity, or worse, her boyfriend's guilt. They were just silly nagging doubts that she could shoo away until they stopped coming back.

The funny thing is, as my young man and I said our goodbyes before he headed west, he reminded me to be good. I think this is absolute madness. I'm going to be going to the same job I always go to, at a software company, working with married men. It's not like I have to hold myself back or anything. Being a faithful programmer is pretty darn easy. I know that my rock star boyfriend has nothing to worry about and in my reasonable moments, I know that I don't either. Jealousy does not listen to reason. Instead, it interrupts and says, "Yeah, but..." Thus the shooing.

But if he is trying to get to sleep in that smelly van somewhere near Wichita and is kept awake by thoughts of me straying into the arms of someone else, he'll remember that I love him and I don't cheat on him. He can shoo that silly nagging doubt away. Or he can call me up, even in the middle of the night, and we'll shoo it away together.