"Awww....."

Hi all...

Around campus, we are struck by the blossoming "young love" and inappropriate groping in the library. What is it with this need clingy freshman girls have to attach themselves to bothered guys within the first three weeks of school? They seem almost ferocious in their efforts to--well, suck, as it were, their way into a relationship.

Jordin Sparks recently released her no. 1 hit "Battlefield." As we thumbed through the comments on iTunes, we came across the following remarks--surely made by a recently jilted sixteen year old.

"Jordin's new song 'Battlefield' is out of this world amazing...All I can say is that it is EPIC....beyond hit song, beyond an anthem....simply epic! Tell all of your friends. This is the best song of the year....hands down."

Is this an indication of a trend in our culture? Is the classic story of "boy meets girl, boy and girl choose to fall in love after a careful analysis of the pros and cons of the combination of their respective color code personality traits and FICO scores, boy and girl marry with full approbation of family and friends, boy and girl ride off into a 5.4 percent mortgaged sunset" becoming extinct?

Please take a second to watch this epic-ness from Jordin and help us crack the code...."Why IS love like a battlefield...?"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yp7oSHLr3BY&feature=fvst

Our Humble Abode

Pithy stays at a great house--overseen by a great landWoman and, like we have said before, pretty much the best deal in town. That said, it would only be half the story to go any longer without a few semi-gregarious comments about our situation.

This morning Tom was awakened by what seemed the sound of heavy breathing--panting--through the wall in the bathroom. In that half-way place of sleep and wakefulness, he thinks he imagines the sound--that it is just the shower. The sleep subsides and it dawns: there is no propane--it IS the shower, the shower and Prudence as she "breathe counts" her way through the apocalyptically cold washing of her hair. Jerry has similar stories, but we will spare our gentle readership THAT tmi.

The fridge pretends to be cold. Upon arriving three weeks ago, there were two solid blocks of ice in the freezer (and an ample coating of ice in the back of the fridge's insides), so solid, in fact, the idea of a fridge in freezer's clothing never crosses our minds. No, this sneaky ice-caked imposter preys upon our innocence and we fill it with many safekeepings--lettuce, milk, butter, the infamous avocadoes--and we shut the door, quietly confident in its ability, like Horton of old, to protect the eggs.

A gallon of sour milk (and half-and-half), one camping cooler and a drink fridge from Craigslist later, we call landWoman. The response ? Have we burped it yet? Now, Pithy is not wise in all worldly things--we strive to develop in many directions, and have gained many valuable pieces of knowledge--but never have we heard of burping a refrigerator. Acceding to the greater wisdom of landWoman, Tom and Jerry gather the infant between them and gently rock--nothing. No gaseous expulsion of any kind, not even a hiccup. Perhaps not the best idea we think, but landWoman proves us wrong when--four hours later--the fridge at last passes the bubble and settles into its cool hibernation.

There are many things--things which we are sure will one day gain that special status of "remember that one time when we lived at that one place and had that one dishwasher that was so noisy you couldn't hear yourself talk if you spoke into a stethoscope?--that was awesome!"--that try us. And while they may once be immortalized in ballad, presently they are irritating, and we hope to distract ourselves by laughing at them.

Excuse Me...?

There are times--definitive moments--when you feel your life being inexorably drawn to a pivotal event. Helplessly, it compels you forward to meet yourself in an almalgamous, harmonic, metaphysical supernova.

Pithy had one of these moments in the Lin's produce section.

"Excuse me? Do you mind if I ask you a weird question...?"

At this point it was probably not rude of us to respond with, "Well, yeah I kinda do...not really in to that whole weird question thing..." After all, the woman posing the question was quite forward herself--but, like I said, "compelled forward..."

"Sure," Prudence responds, somewhat wary.

"I don't mean to pry...but,"--we have since learned that this in fact means they do want to pry. Don't ask us why she prefaced it this way. It would have been much more accurate to lead in with an honest "I mean to pry..." But we tell it like it is--or was, as the case may be. "I don't mean to pry...but, are you Pentecostal?"

(Later, when we examine this story at all possible angles, Tom will say the word was Mennonite, Prudie will reinforce Pentecostal, and Jerry--in form--struggles with Mentecostal as an actual, valid lifestyle.) Take stock of ourselves: What are we? Where are we from? What physical characteristics led to such an inquiry? The denim skirt? The collective long sleeves? Or was it something elusive--an aura--that left such an air of mystery that Creepywoman in Lin's produce section (we can call her this now) was compelled--in her own self discovery moment (that she has fluid boundaries and an inadequate knowledge of social etiquette)--to ask, "Are you Pentecostal?"

All this flashes in our mind's eye--well we kind of evenly distribute it between us: Prudie takes on the skirt, Tom thinks about the sleeves. The expectation builds in a crescendo of--well, expectancy, coming to a jarring halt at our contrite: "No, sorry."

That's it, "No, sorry." Our life defining moment was an apology--and we hadn't even done something wrong. Better luck next time I guess. As a note: the offending skirt earned us another encounter at Lin's produce section (what is it with avocados that misleads "Talk to us, we don't mind...spill your heart out...") this time concerning GAP, Maurices, and other such appropriate places of apparel for obtaining mysterious denim skirts.

Lesson learned: "not prying" + avocados = gawkamole