Sometimes I wonder if the most oblique of my references tickle anyone. I'm glad that they do you.

And I'm not surprised that you've sold your words. Not a bit.

After I wrote what I wrote, I thought, "Ah, ya fool, she's probably already being paid to write."

You could still expand what you wrote and sell it.

I cower behind the untarnishing para-truth: the more men you know, Biblically-speaking, the less you know.

Thanks, Rachael F.

I have to find some magic beans to grow a beanstalk to reach your fingers, for they're the fingers that lay the golden words.

But first I have to find a cow to barter for those beans.

When I see men and women separate by gender, through their 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s, I think, "We join to procreate. After that, it's as it was in 2nd grade, when boys played on their parcel of the playground and girls on theirs."

LeftyChris wrote: "Sounds to me like you're a budding lesbian just itching to bust out. And that's perfectly fine. But just get it over with already! That way your husband can actually seek out someone who appreciates him and finds him sexually attractive and appealing, poor guy."

Whoa thar, son. I've heard of people painting themselves into a corner, but by crickedy, you went and painted AKASmith into a corner.

Did you read this thread? There are lots of data about the plasticity of women's sexuality.

You read that AKASmith admires the female form and you yell, "Divorce! Divorce!"

I imagine you as the captain of an aircraft carrier and you enter the galley and you hear bacon sizzling.

But then you see fire beneath the bacon and you shout, "Fire! Fire! Abandon ship!"

You've got the jitters, son.

Then I object to the cliche of objecting!

Nah, I don't.

But I do object to your moniker, which insists that you're a moderate at all times and your position is an extreme one.

It reminds me of that long-ago "Dear Abby, Dear Abby," song, with the line, "You are what you are and you ain't what you ain't."

firefly82 wrote: "I just hate how it's taken to be some kind of qualification for public office if someone is a "100% straight, heterosexual" man or woman."

That's pert near one of my long-ago points: that we Ted Haggardize candidates by forcing their sexuality into some extreme position, which is in keeping with a non-flip-flopping candidate as the very best sort of Sneetch. Show me someone who never changes their mind and you've shown me a idjit.

Up at 5 a.m. Home at 9 p.m. I bought food and clothes for my students who came to school without cereal in their bellies or socks on their feet in January. I bought Christmas gifts and paid to have their teeth fixed. I did this for 23 years and it was a great life. I would enter a room full of parents and everyone would whisper. Who gets to have a single Atticus-Finch-exiting-the-courtroom moment? I had countless ones.

I look at people with their McMansions and I think, "Small dicks. Smaller souls."

"Texas teachers? If Dubya is any indication of what they turn out, then they are grossly overpaid."

Silly anonymous. Don't blame Texas teachers for Bush. He's a private school product. If anything, blame privilege.

LC wrote: "I do appreciate the "delicious tensions" of uncertainty and ambiguity. Trust me. But, anyway, carry on..."

Nah, I think not. AKASmith was so obviously makebelieving and you missed it, which had me thinking, "Perhaps LeftyChris should leave his wife right now, since he doesn't comprehend that women can wonder and do wonder and do delight in wondering. After all, isn't he burdening his wife with his uncomprehension? Doesn't she deserve to be with a man who gets that women wonder?"

LC, read, "Texasville," by Larry McMurtry. Jacy, the protagonist's old flame, and Karla, the protagonist's wife, wonder aloud and long about each other's delights, for they're not encumbered by the common male dread of their gender's genitalia. It could inform you, if you're willing.

I wasn't going to reply to you, LC, but then you veiled a threat: "There are, broadly speaking, two types of mind: The ironic and the literal. Literal-minded folk have major trouble with complex, nuanced thought, with sarcasm, with irony, with satire and parody, with doubt and skepticism, with ambiguity, and more. Literal-mindedness is closely correlated with rigid, dogmatic thinking, with humorlessness, with intolerance and intransigence, with paranoia. They are chronically offended and hypersensitive people, and have serious problems with rational thought. Ms. Capote, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you slipped up and mistakenly read more into my reply to AKA Smith than was actually there. It happens to us all from time to time. Fetboy, OTOH--buddy, there's no doubt in my mind as to which category of mind that you fall into. None whatsoever."

The threat is cognitive dismissal: if I don't amend my position, you will dismiss me as you do Fetboy. Well, then, dismiss and be done. I'm certain to fail your lofty expectations and I'd sooner do it now than worry about when.

@AKASmith: Maybe I'm still defending you and I know you don't need this, which is why I was quiet, but I didn't want LC to think I was quivering. And I like you too and hope that I get you, even through a guhzillion Internet tubes.