1998: Solidarity (“Yeah, me neither–I hate those things!”)

1999: Envy (“Lucky you; I had to get one for work.”)

2000: Indifference (“Okay, what’s your home phone number then?”)

2001: Encouragement (“You should get one–you can play Tetris on them now!”)

2002: Confusion (“I thought you were, like, a tech guy.”)

2003: Sympathy (“They’re getting pretty cheap. You’ll be able to afford one soon.”)

2004: Irritation (“So how am I supposed to get a hold of you?”)

2005: Derision (“If we go out tonight I’ll send you a fax.”)

2006: Skepticism (“Are you serious?”)

2007: Awe (“Wow, you’re like the last one.”)

2008: Incomprehension (“You don’t … how …?”)

I hit some secret combination of buttons and unlocked Witch Mode.

So lemmie tell you about the (mostly healed, in this photograph) wound on my forehead. Kind of a funny story.

Last week The Queen and I rearranged the furniture in our bedroom, to make space for my new Craftsman 1470 pc. Professional Tool Set. (I like to store it all laid out like that, so I can easily find things.) As part of Operation Squabble (we cleverly embarked upon this plan when we were already tired and cranky, like at midnight), we decided to put a dresser into the walk-in closet. We’re talking a full-sized bureau here, about five feet high.

I grab one side, The Queen grabs the other, and we hoist it across the room. Between the lifting and my slightly hunched-over posture, the top edge of the dresser is level with my eyeline. Also, the corners of the thing are incredibly sharp. That’s a little thing we in the literary business like to call “Foreshadowing”.

So I’m backing into the closet. As I do so, the back of my head makes contact with the … you know, the thing. The rod. The hollow, wooden tube that runs below the shelf, on which you place the clothes hangers? That thing. I touch it with the back of my head. But I am so startled that I jerk forward, slamming my forehead into the corner of the dresser.

“Ohh god!” I howl, hastily setting my end of the dresser down and clutching my forehead. “Oh man. God, that hurts. Jeeze, I really got myself. I’m going to have a splitting headache within five minutes, I bet. Probably have a huge bump tomorrow, too. Wow, that was pretty bad. Yeah, that’s gonna be a goose egg.”

I look up at The Queen, and she’s completely stony-faced. Not a trace of sympathy. “Can we finish this?” she says. So I mutter under my breath a bit, and we finish putting the dresser into the closet.

About an hour later The Queen is in bed reading, and, as I climb in, she glances my direction. “Holy smokes,” she cries, “what happened?!”

“What?”

“Your forehead! There’s a huge red mark on it.”

I do a slow burn for a moment. “That’s where I hit it. On the corner of the dresser.”

“When did that happen?”

“When did …?!” I splutter a bit. “Did you miss the part where I was clutching my head and yowling?”

“Ohhhhhh ….” Realization sets in. “I didn’t see you hit your head on the dresser. I though you were reacting to having backed into the closet rod at, like, one mile an hour.”

“I had my hand on the front of my head!” I point out.

“Yes,” she says, “That’s how I knew you were faking.”

Sorry about the irregular posting schedule around here recently, but National Start! Walking Day was on April 16th and that’s been keeping me pretty busy.

Speaking of which, if anyone knows when National Stop! Walking Day is, could you let me know? I probably should have checked before I left. Right now I’m about 7 miles outside of Spokane, heading east on I-90–just drive around until you find me. I’m covering about 30-35 miles a day, so keep take that into account. Also, if you could bring some power bars and water, that would be awesome, thanks.

A friend, having read my last post, asked if The Queen really objects to botanical inaccuracies in movies. Oh yes, yes indeed. And not just in motion pictures, either. If I’d known, in advance, that the TV show LOST would feature a bunch of people on a tropical island populated with temperate foliage, I never would have put it in my Netflix queue.

Of course, I’m just as bad when something I’m passionate about is misrepresented on film. Like games, for instance. I still break into hives whenever I think of the scene in Freaks and Geeks where the parents play the card game Pit, just the two of them.

But my all-time least favorite scene–one that appears in about every third film, seemingly–has to be this one:

The hero and the antagonist are playing chess, a game in which both are virtual grandmasters. It's a close fought match, and they banter while they play. Slowly, their moves--and their conversation--become more aggressive. Eventually they are openly hostile to one another, both on the board and off.

Then, victory. Smirking, the villain says something irrefutable to the hero, moves a bishop, and announces check.

For a long moment the two men lock eyes. Suddenly, the hero utters a devastating riposte, breaks eye contact just long enough to capture the bishop with his queen, and, with the slightest hint of a smile, declares checkmate. He rises from his chair and walks briskly away, leaving the loser to gawps at the board in amazement.

Yes, I understand that one grandmaster saying “I’m going to checkmate you in seven moves” followed by 23 straight minutes of the opponent staring at the board before replying, “ah, you are right–good game” lacks some of the “pizzazz” of the Hollywood version. But I still would rather sit through both episodes of Viva Laughlin, back-to-back, than endure this scene again.

What’s the scene you hate?

Being married to a professional botanist has its ups and downs. It’s nice on day hikes, for instance, having someone around who can instantly identify every plant we see. On the other hand, I don’t need to be notified of every ecological incongruence in the films we watch. The Queen spent much of the Lord of the Rings trilogy leaning over to me in the theater and whispering, “pfff, I can see why they call this a fantasy–they have polystichum munitum growing in a tropical upland climatic zone.”

Last night we went to a wreath-making party last night. Our host provided us with wire frames, fir boughs, holly, and pine cones; before dinner, while I read stories to Squiggle and put him to bed, everyone else got all elfy in the garage.

At the end of the evening we collected our wreath. Ours, while beautiful, was the least ornate of the bunch, consisting only of boughs. As we carried a sleeping Squiggle out to the car, I asked The Queen about this.

Me: Why didn’t you put holly in our wreath?

Queen: Because holly berries are poisonous, and when Squiggle saw them he pointed excitedly and yelled “cherries!”

M: Ah, good call. But what about the pine cones? You could have put a few of those on there.

Q: No I couldn’t. They were the wrong kind.

M: What do you mean?

Q: The boughs were from one species of tree and the pine cones were from another. It would look weird to have them on the same wreath.

M: What, seriously? Nobody would know but you.

Q: Yes, it would look weird to me. That’s what I’m saying.

M: Oh, come on. What’s the big deal?

Q: Let me put this into terms you can understand: imagine if you went to a Star Trek convention and saw a bunch of people dressed as Jedi.

M: Oh, god. Right. Gotcha.

Watching Sesame Street today with Squiggle, it suddenly occurred to me that every time Maria hugs Elmo, some lecherous muppeteer is copping a feel.

Seattle has been rocked by, like, 14 mph winds today. So naturally the local media is reacting as if flesh-eating marmosets devoured the mayor.

Please to be noting:

• Video caption reading “One man was forced to hold onto a tree to keep from being blown over.”
• Actual video shows man using single hand to grasp sapling about 1/50th his diameter and approximately 1° off perpendicular from the ground.
• Lovable seven-year-old ragamuffin nonchalantly walks his bicycle past in the background.

You can’t truly appreciate the devastation until you’ve seen the raw footage. (Warning: contains scenes of umbrella carnage not suitable for all viewers.)

Of course HOLY SHIT WINDSTORM 2007!!! did manage knock out power at my house, which left me without access to online porn for an hour or so. Fortunately I have a copy of the 1977 Sears Catalog in our emergency kit for just such a contingency.

I’m going to write a thriller about a knight who returns home after a year in the Crusades, and finds his wife six-months pregnant despite wearing a chastity belt. It will be a locked-womb mystery.