Things I Don't Understand, Items 231 thru 233

231. Why builders don't use oatmeal that's been left sitting in a bowl for cement
232. Where a person acquires the audacity to stand in the 15 Item Express Line with 47 items in their cart
233. Vitamin Water

Cooper Being Emma Thompson in Nanny McPhee

"From Shakespeare to facial hair---what a career I've had," he says, ignoring the fact that all the child actors on the set refer to him as Karl Malden.

Monday Judgements and Warnings

I have never, nor will I ever, stand before you and act like I'm Lady Mayor of Elegance or what have you but if you're going to BLAST that creepy rave music AT SIX THIRTY IN THE GOD DAMN MORNING so loud that anyone within a 900 mile radius of your suped up Mazda has a violent nostril twitch attack --- you need to go back to the How-To-Be-In-the-World-Without-Making-People-Barf drawing board.

I'm just saying,
Assistant to the Lord of Quiet

Saturday SlobberLove

Have you ever had such an enjoyable doodie you have to bite your favorite chewie toy and act like you're a teradactyl?

Me too.

Rock On People,
Mister Master Happy Hound

Things I Don't Understand, Items 228 thru 230

228. Tilt-A-Whirls
229. Botox
230. Why no one has ever made a horror film based on the unpredictable complexity of smoke alarms and their enigmatic batteries and buttons and beeps and eardrum bursting sirens

Cooper Being Sarah Miles in Ryan's Daughter

"I understand that people equate that movie with profundity and longing but the main thing I remember were drunken villagers urinating into the wind," he says, hiding behind a boulder.

Things I Like More Than Christine O'Donnell

1. Group colon cleansings
2. Horse flies in my ears
3. Being forced to make small talk with Mickey Rourke
4. Mildew flavored gum
5. Rickets

Sunday Secret

There is no way I would ever write about this but if I were to write about this I would tell you that:

1. I think in black and white, relentlessly
2. I don't believe in God---as a matter of fact---the fact that I capitalized the G just now made me feel like a hypocrite
3. I only know that I do not know
4. If I could I would lighten up
5. On most days I believe that to suffer true and deep loss is to join a club that, although there is no turning back and is not much fun, is the only way to burst your heart open and understand that there are very few reasons for existence that happen while standing in line at CostCo

The combination of these 4 things makes for a challenging existence. By challenging I mean---on many days I feel like I am the only member of my own club and so I search for those who are like minded and when I do find a like minded one I sigh and take a step back and just nod my head in recognition because that is the way I would want it.

And despite of or because of this I feel lucky.

On NPR this weekend Ira Glass wove together such incredible stories that there were THREE TIMES I sat in my car, motionless, waiting for the end of the story. And there was one story in particular that held my interest. It was about a young boy---a teenager--- who killed a girl with his car. He was driving one way and she was riding her bike in the other and suddenly she swerved into oncoming traffic and he hit her. Her head cracked his windshield.

The way this story affected me is what I would never tell you. But if I were to tell you I would share that it is these kinds of stories---these stories about unimaginable grief and loss---that give me hope. It is these kinds of stories that I can barely listen to initially---I heard the beginning of this story on Saturday morning and finally heard the end of it on the rebroadcast this evening while I cooked dinner---that hold such comforting truth for me that I must listen to them in stages---more because I want to have that feeling of being less alone, longer.

The thing is that every time I think I know nothing I hear something that makes me feel convinced that I know everything. And on the days when I feel that the losses I have suffered are undeniable burdens in the morning---by late afternoon I am heart burst open grateful that I have experienced the losses that I have because those are the things that bring me clarity and those are the things that find me standing in my kitchen wondering about another person's journey as I would my own.

And all of this is what makes me wonder. So. I guess this is not so much a secret as a sharing and I guess I'm not so much a Black and White thinker as a Person In Search of Gray and I guess I'm not so much a person that does not believe in god as one who believes in Ira Glass.

Yours in Unending Contemplation,
Sergeant Holy Moly

Things I Don't Understand, Items 225 thru 227

225. Drivers addicted to changing lanes
226. Life before vegetable peelers
227. Harps and those who play them

Cooper Being Ali MacGraw in Love Story

"I thought the line should have been 'LOVE MEANS NEVER HAVING TO SAY I HATE YOU YOU'RE TOO CONTROLLING' but no one listened to me," he says, making sure his hair is parted in the middle.

Monday Judgements and Warnings

I don't want to be an alarmist or anything but while the rest of you have been arguing about health care and equal rights and global warming---Tori Spelling, her husband Dean and their homely children are slowly taking over the world.

Batten Down the Hatches Cuz This One's a Big'n,
General Uh-Oh

Saturday SlobberLove

Sometimes on Saturday evenings, after we've resisted the temptation to spend money like big dopes on overpriced MSG-tainted Thai food take-out, and we INSTEAD make hearty and satisfying whole wheat pasta with arrabiatta sauce that makes us ooh and ahh for the better part of the meal---sometimes, after that---after we have wound down a bit and gazed out into the night sky and commented on the fact that the air is draped with thoughts about how soon it will be Halloween and then Thanksgiving and then Christmas and how it's eerie the way we can feel all this just by standing still outside---after all this---we feel the stillness even more profoundly and we each feel our individual heartsongs and we look up toward the moon and we say:

IS THERE ANYTHING MORE WONDROUS ON THIS EARTH THAN A PEPPERONCINI?

Ciao Bella,

Signorina Crunch

Things I Don't Understand, Items 223 thru 224

223. The band RUSH
224. Women who have so many collagen injections that their lips look like baby sea lions
225. Carrot Top (obviously)

Cooper Being Zero Mostel in The Producers

Here he is seen just seconds before flashing his famous Nostrils in the Air shot that never failed to have the entire crowd in stitches from hysterical, convulsive laughter.

"One time I made a lady laugh so hard her bazooms burst right there in the front row," he says before grabbing a passing stage hand's buttocks while making a loud honking noise.

"Oh how I love a plump tuckus!" he shouts, zanily.

Tuesday Expert Advice

Dear Cupcake,

Recently, I received the 98 gazillionith email from Sephora promoting their Just Say No To Wrinkles campaign and within the text of the email was a scientific little search field inviting me to Search By Concern so I immediately took advantage of this amazing device and typed in my most serious concerns in that moment: Bears and Someone coming into my office on the rare occasion that I've farted moments before and I have heard NOTHING back from the Sephora Scientists. Does this mean that the people at Sephora are, in fact, NOT scientists or does this mean that I need to consult other marketing experts in order to find a decent balm for my concerned queries?
---Doubled Over With Doubt in Dinwiddle

Dear Doubled,
No.
Good luck,
Cupcake

Monday Judgements and Warnings

I don't gamble and I've never been in a knife fight but if I were forced to choose sides and ready myself for battle I think I could do it.

I think I could rile myself up enough with a bunch of violent-ishey affirmations--- like how those poor little half dozen soldiers who listened to that We Few, We Happy Few! speech from Henry V---I could do it. I could put my armor on and stand, more serious than any serious that has ever been serious (like as serious as when you hit Reply All by mistake--THAT FUCKING SERIOUS) and stare at myself in the mirror and get all up in my own face and then grab my sword and march onto the battlefield and say my Hail Mary Chapin Carpenters and then go CHARGING!, like a righteous and self-obsessed very uptight bull into battle, screaming:

GIVE ME CANTALOUPE OR GIVE ME DEATH! as I slay each and every Honeydew Soldier who is unfortunate enough to cross my path.

Serious Times Call For Serious Measures,
Betty Battlecry

Things I Don't Understand, Items 220 thru 222

220. Sandra Lee and her delirium tremens themed tablescapes
221. When companies have Crazy Hat Day!
222. The remote control

Cooper Being Sally Field in Not Without My Daughter

"Helllllooooooooooooo. Is she there? Can you see her? Did she leave? Where is she? Can I go home now? Why was I cast in this movie?"he asks before regaling us with a story about his bittersweet love affair with Burt Reynolds and then reminding us about the fact that, although he is 97 years old, he still wears size 4 Levi's.