Forbidden Fruit

 No, this isn't a grocery store post although I keep meaning to tell Julie that blueberries are $2.99 a pint where I live and are mostly from Mexico, Peru, and Argentina. Sorry I forgot, J.

This is actually a Self-Pity Post about feeling old and a little pathetic. I'm going to get very Share-y right now, and I need your support. 

Here goes.

I have a little crush on 

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Myles Garrett of the Cleveland Browns football team. I find him very attractive; moreover, he likes Elton John music, writes poetry, and studies dinosaurs. Look how cute he is. 

Additionally (oh, it only gets worse!) I have a continuing Thing for

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Timothée Chalamet and his perfectly sculpted chin and cheekbones. I know absolutely nothing about him except that I think he should use the French pronunciation of his first name, not the American (even though it would sound sort of sing-songy, so I guess I get why he doesn't). I don't even watch his movies. I just find his whole head incredibly beautiful.

Both of these men are only 27 years old. I am old enough to be their...(where is Mikey to do my math!?) ... well, certainly their mother. Could I be their grandmother as well? Give me a moment--no Mikey. 

-*-*-*-*-*-*

Holy crap, yes. Yes, I could be. If their mothers were only 18 when they had Timothée and Myles, they would be 45 now. That means I'd have been 19 when I had them. It's a bit of a stretch, but certainly possible. 

Sigh. It's just pathetic. And a little creepy. But here's the thing. The man I used to have a Major Crush on now looks like this

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That is what is left of Daniel Day-Lewis. For your reference, here is what he used to look like when we all I fell in love with him lo! these many years ago

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Just saying. Daniel Day-Lewis turned 66 this past year. I'm all for embracing your age, but yikes! Don't tell me he couldn't look way better than he does.

In the meantime I'll appreciate these Cute Men from afar despite the fact that they could call me Nana. How about you? Tell me you have a Forbidden Fruit, too.

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G Is For Gallimaufry

Sigh. I know I'm almost cheating with this one. But G is proving to be a toughie for some reason, the greatest being that I am in a Terrible SAD Funk right now (Seasonal Affective Disorder). February always kicks me around pretty well, and trust me, I am bruised and battered.

And if One More Person says to me, "Hey, at least this winter has not been as bad as Last Year!" I will, with some Pleasantness, smack that Person right in the mouth.

Okay.

Onward, then! (She said brightly.)

This Week's Gallimaufry Of Miscellany

1. Shut Up Shut Up Shut Up. I would pay Actual Money if I could eliminate a Certain Name from all newscasting for the foreseeable future. Someone needs to invent this...this Thing wherein you could program your television and/or remote control to recognize words and immediately silence, bleep, or change them into a word you like better. Wouldn't that be so wonderful? I especially like that last option. I would change all mentions of a Certain Gameshow republican to Daniel Day-Lewis, a name I never tire of hearing. Or maybe something really cute, like Koala Ballerina. Can you imagine it? "In other news, Koala Ballerina, presumptive republican presidential nominee, has taken to Twitter to silence his critics." Or, "republican nominee Daniel Day-Lewis is hoping to meet with Pope Francis in order to put any perceived bitterness to rest."

2. Crazy Cat Lady. In my dining room right now are two boxes; I made a special trip to the warehouse club in order to procure them. They are tricked out, cut up, and otherwise Creatively Fashioned so that the cats will hopefully be interested in them and stop eating my iPhone and iPad charger cords. They are, basically, Busy Boxes For Cats. At any given moment, one of the cats is, instead, sleeping in them. Not sure if this is a Win.

3. Not In My House. We recently redid the home office. I opted for streamlined stuff, a camel/black/ivory colour scheme, and a mix of textures for the room. I did not, however, opt for this:

Someone get a pulse!

Lee Eun Kyoung's Free Hug Sofa. Thanks, but No.

(Even though it sounds like I could use a hug.)

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So Much On My Mind That It's Criminal

In 2013 the Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year was selfie, the photo taken of one by oneself with a smartphone or webcam and usually shared via social media. That same year, a runner-up was binge-watching. I do not do the former, but I have done the latter, and I have done it often. Selfies always make me look terrible and I hate them. I look tired, old, and as if I have an enormous face. Binge-watching has never done me a bit of harm; that is, until today.

First, a bit of exposition. Some of you may recall that the Dept. gave up cable quite a while ago, and now we live on regular broadcast digital and a Roku, which brings us Jared's Netflix. I've found that I really don't miss anything, especially now that I've found a few new shows to watch. One of them has an actor whose character I like, and it has turned into a Mini-Obsession of sorts, especially now that Daniel Day-Lewis has retreated back into the Gaping Void Of His Creative Space And Marriage. Anyway, the show is Criminal Minds, the character is Dr. Spencer Reid, and the actor is Matthew Gray Gubler.

Here he is with sunglasses and the tously hair, and a little bit of a five o'clock shadow happening.

He's a fan of the messy-haired, but kind of  "Just got off the soccer field, but it won't take me long to get cleaned up before we go out" look.



He's got kind of a "Daniel Day-Lewis Meets Johnny Depp Meets Rob Lowe" thing going on, and I like it.

His character is very awkward and nerdy, however, and brilliant, of course, and he gets debilitating migraines.  (Aha! say all my Readers.) The big thing is, of course, his looks. He has quite a few of the Necessaries: 1. Pretty 2. Longer Hair 3. Slender 4. Great Mouth.

Sigh.

Good Heavens. If he had a British accent, I'd be in tears every time I watched that show.

But I digress.

I had no negative side effects, as I said before, from binge-watching Criminal Minds with MGG in the past, even though it is a terribly and horrifically violent and bloody show. (Honestly, I have no idea how I am able to watch it. It's truly sickening.) The past few days, however, I have watched it a lot. A LOT. There were some episodes that I hadn't even seen before, and last night I watched very late into the night.

But I still woke up early to take the Prius in to get some recall work and an oil change. The place had generously provided all kinds of coffees and teas and some doughnuts. I had a bottle of water. I was playing against my Maryland friend Leanne in Words with Friends on my phone to pass the time. Suddenly, the elderly lady to my left took an absolutely enormous bite out of her jelly doughnut. Huge red clots dropped down through her fingers and onto her pants. My stomach lurched just a little. She grabbed her napkins and began wiping, wiping, wiping, trying so hard to get rid of the evidence of what had happened. The whole napkin was stained with red now. My stomach felt a little queasy, so I looked away and tried to get Lady Macbeth's famous speech out of my head. I turned toward the television and took a sip of water.

On the screen were obscenely large slabs of raw, red meat. The chef (Bobby Flay) selected a long steel knife and carefully sliced away several cuts. The sound was muted, so all I heard was a service tech, who was explaining something to another woman sitting across from me. As the knife continued slicing, I heard, "We didn't find him in there, no, but we found evidence that he'd been there, all right. There was some hair, some shavings, and some other things all balled up. Those kinds of things can clog up the works pretty well. The harsh winter brings them out, and then they need to find a place to hide out and stay warm." Horrified, I was glad to hear the jingle that told me it was my turn to play a word. I played lye for a decent amount of points, then glanced back up at the television. Big chunks of raw meat were being ground up, and then, a quick cut to shots of sloppy burgers dripping with ketchup. My stomach clenched, and I frowned, suddenly suspicious.

I began to observe the staff as they bustled around, smiling at every single person they encountered. No one came near a door without one of Them opening it for the person to walk through. They were so obsequious and eager that it was creepy. Just what kind of place was this? Why were all the people in the waiting room women? Was I the only one who couldn't hear the TV? And why did it take so long for my iPhone to connect to their free WiFi?

But these were questions for another time.  My car was done, and I had to go.  They held the doors open for me, and waved me out, smiling all the time.

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And The Greatest Of These Is Love...Of Learning

One of the objectives that was a Big Deal when I was still formally In Education was helping our students to become Lifelong Learners. At first glance, that looks sort of at odds with a more tangible goal, which is always to get them to graduate in four years. Becoming a Lifelong Learner, however, means to instill into each thriving mind that Love Of Learning--so much so that said mind wants to go on learning new things forever and forever.

I am a Lifelong Learner, but my education didn't make me that way. It's not that I didn't have excellent teachers all along the way; I did. Part of my quest for learning has to do with reading, and the other part has to do with an all-consuming Need To Know that completely commandeers my conscious mind and compels me to find out every single detail, fact, and available piece of information about whatever it is that currently interests me.

My lifelong learning has led me to, at various stages of my life, read deeply in, research the hell out of, and generally beat up the following topics, in no especial order:



1.  Jack the Ripper
2.  Cows
3.  R.M.S. Titanic
4.  Birds of North America
5.  Redwoods
6.  Oscar Wilde
7.  The Battle of Gettysburg
8.  Mary Lincoln
9.  Abraham Lincoln (1840-1865)
10. Human anatomy
11. John Keats
12. Emily Dickinson
13. The Black Donnellys
14. Daniel Day-Lewis

There are others, but I don't want to start freaking people out unnecessarily. I'm not counting the stuff I started to research because I had to teach it, either, like Walt Whitman. I was already deep into Miss Emily before she became part of my regular curriculum.

The Interwebs make this so very, very easy. If I hear about something on NPR, I can research it immediately on the Interwebs. I can then go on Amazon.com (my boyfriend!) and select books which my boyfriend will then send directly to my front porch in a few days or so. I can even get on Netflix and search for any documentaries on the topic. The amount of information available to me at my fingertips is almost overwhelming. There is so much that I can wallow in information: facts, details, witness accounts, photographs, recordings, testimony, you name it. For information addicts like me, it is heaven.

The problem with making Lifelong Learning an educational goal or objective is that it's impossible to achieve if you have a student with absolutely no natural curiosity. Or a student who doesn't/won't read. Or someone who doesn't care about anything but himself and his (insert trivial object here: cellphone, motorcycle, designer something).

I just this minute learned that someone from Maryland discovered what he thinks might be pictures of President Lincoln's funeral procession passing by on a New York City street. The photo, published on a Flickr site, is from the National Archives. Here's a link.  I'll be looking closely at it as soon as I hit "Publish" on this post.  Then, I'll probably click another link, then another, then another.  And pretty soon, I'll be looking at all kinds of other things and learning about them, too.

Being a Lifelong Learner is a gift.  Did you receive it?  What wonderful, interesting things have you learned about?

No Matter How Long It Takes, No Matter How Far, I Will Find You

Rummaging through a desk drawer the other day, I came across an old notecard with someone's AOL email address on it.  Also included was their Instant Messenger name.  I had to smile.  I don't think I've been on AOL Instant Messenger since 2004, and that was when I was using it to answer questions posed by my sophomores regarding their research papers.  I was Very Progressive, according to my assistant principal then, and Very Cool, according to my sophomores.  In all actuality, I was Very Lazy.  It beat staying after school and coming in early before school, and I could tackle several people at the same time, all from the comfort of my rolly chair in my own home.

AOL was way more jazzy than the platform  I used in the earlier days of my online life.  Do any of you remember Prodigy?  I used to get online via dial-up and spend hours on Prodigy in an online community devoted to the film The Last of the Mohicans and its star, Daniel Day-Lewis.  There, I found a wealth of knowledge about all of the film's stars, locations, and all kinds of stuff. I got to be a Regular there, and along with a group of thirty or so people, we posted often.  No bit of information or detail was too arcane, especially if it was about DD-L or if it was a mistake in the film.  We dissected and discussed, swooned and snickered.  Pretty soon, we split into two factions, the Westerners and the Easterners.  Talk became more lively and more about each other than the film.  Some of the posters knew each other, and some lived close enough that they arranged meet-ups.  There was even talk of an all-out convention for each faction.  Which leads me to today's question:

Have you ever made a friend online first and only afterward met her in person?  How did you finally meet?

The short answer is, heavens yes, all the time;  I just go where they are and say hello.  The longer answer begins with meeting some of the fans I met on Prodigy.  Because I had a Real Job which cut horribly into my Free Time, I couldn't attend the Eastern convention.  Later, however, another one was planned in New York.  We would tour actual sites of the French and Indian War, meet up with two extras from the film who were also Prodigy posters, and visit a fort.  I was the last one to fly in, and I was met at the airport by several of the women who I had gotten to know by name online, but who I had never seen.  It didn't matter. Once we introduced ourselves, we merely picked up where we had left off online; physically meeting was nothing more than a formality.  That was about twenty years ago, and it was the day I met Ann.

After that, we had several other mini-conventions in different locales.  One memorable one was in Michigan, at a friend's lake house on Silver Lake.  At that one, Ann paid for a copy of the film to be shown at a theater in a nearby town.  We saw it twice, with a break for lunch.

Since then, I've met bloggers, too.  I drove to Virginia to spend time with Shirley, of glutenfreeeasily, and Veronica of the hibernating CompostStudios.  And just last month, during my stay with Mikey in San Francisco, I was able to spend the day with Julie of Thinking About.  Again, physically meeting was merely a formality.  We've been friends for years!  Honestly, what does it matter what any of us looks like?  Unless one of us is looking for someone to model our latest fashions, who cares?

My mother--and probably a few others in my family--worry each time I do this, go and meet "a stranger", as they call it.  What if? is the first phrase out of her mouth.  She forgets that I've already gotten to know this person.  We've talked; I've read her life in her own words.  I know her.

Friends have been made with less.

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I'm Back From Vacation And My Brain Is Bursting--Time To Swiffer The Cerebellum

Time for a good Clear-Out of the Cranial Crud, so let's just get on with it, shall we? Good!

1.  Why Can't I Quit You?    I am talking about my LoveHate, Daniel Day-Lewis.  Not to be tedious here, but my Longtime Readers know of my eleventy hundred year affair with this man and my dismay with his failure to A) reprise his Glory Days of The Last of the Mohicans by taking glamour roles and B) look handsome and dress well in public the few times he does surface.

Right now, the stars have aligned and three of my Favourite Things have come together as one:  President Lincoln, historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, and DD-L, for a movie has been made of her wonderful book Team of Rivals and DD-L is playing Lincoln.  When I heard this news, I was elated and thrilled.  When I saw this picture of DD-L as President Lincoln, I was excited. 

Then I saw his picture from the White House Correspondents' Dinner, where he was (inexplicably) a guest of The Huffington Post.

There is no excuse for that haircut.  His next role is a 17th century Jesuit priest who travels to Japan.  It is in pre-production. It's like he doesn't even care how much he embarrasses me.

2.  Why Didn't Someone Yell Cut?  And speaking of President Lincoln and film, I could not be more outraged, disappointed, and saddened by the ridiculous movie currently in theaters (and which I will not name here) that turns our 16th president into some sort of occult action hero.  Why not Nixon or Washington, or, oh hell, let's grab a non-president with a distinctive and readily-identifiable persona, Benjamin Franklin?

from Amazon Studios

 Honestly, the whole premise offends me.  Oh, I know that I'm sensitive to Anything Lincoln--I get that.  But it's awful.  I really believe that the only reason the filmmakers and producers are getting away with this travesty is because there are no surviving direct descendants of the Lincoln line.

3.  Doesn't Anyone Else Speak English?  Now, back to books.  Those of you who actually read at my site may have noticed in the sidebar that I'm reading--off and on--a book titled The Whole Truth by David Baldacci.  It's not My Kind Of Book, but I got it because A) it was part of my campaign to broaden my reading spectrum and not be so snobby; B) it was only a few bucks in hardback when a bookstore was closing; and C) it is a genre that a buddy of mine enjoys.  So I'm reading this and I notice a sentence that rocks me up off my chaise longue and causes me to say out loud to no one,"Oh my GOD NO WAY IS THIS IN HERE!"  Here is the offending sentence from page 165: When the screams reached Anna's ear, she thought someone had injured themself.  

I. Know.  Go ahead.  Look up "themself" in the dictionary (or try anyway).  Look up "someone."  Now look up the rule governing pronoun-antecedent agreement, just for the hell of it.  Then try not to kill yourself at any point along the way.   And this sentence is only one example.  I took this sentence to lunch with a bunch of English teachers, and during our chat, I said, "I bet if I did a Fry Readability Assessment on this book, it would score only about a sixth grade level.  Seriously.  It's a New York Times best seller, and it's just so elementary.  It's a Guy Book, but it's just basic." My friend Caroline said, "Who's it by, now?"  I said, "David Baldacci."  She responded with a grimace, "Well, what did you expect from a former child star who has had a bunch of drug problems and all that?  Wasn't he the one from The Partridge Family?"  (Gotta love her. But she just had a baby and a job change and...well, she gets a pass from me.) 

Now, I look at David Baldacci's bio.  He has a ton of best sellers to his credit and I have...zero.  He established the Wish You Well foundation, which, ironically, supports "family literacy in the United States by fostering and promoting the development and expansion of new and existing literacy and educational programs."  In the acknowledgements of The Whole Truth, he thanks his editor for doing a great job.  (But who allowed this sentence on p. 270:  Creel was actually a private investor in the newspaper and he'd been the one who'd discreetly behind the scenes orchestrated the assignment for her.)  And the Fry?  I was wrong. 

Hard to see, but my dot indicates the score. Maybe you can click and it will enlarge.

It graphed out at a 6.5 grade reading level, age 11.5.  David Baldacci is a Good Guy, but his writing is not for me.

4.  Speaking of bookstores, I want to come clean publicly for being The Responsible Party, The One Who Singlehandedly Closed Borders.  I'm sorry.  It was I.  I was the one who simply stopped going to bookstores and chose the Evil Convenience of Amazon.com.  I didn't even browse Borders and have cappuccino or biscotti or any of those other fun words to say at their cafe.  I was lured by the comfort of my chair at home and Super Saver Shipping.  I felt dirty and sinful and like a Horrid Opportunist when I swooped in and grabbed cheapo hardbacks during their Last Days, like the warty old women bartering over Scrooge's bedcurtains.  Please don't hate me.  I want redemption,  Help me.

5.  Finally, if you are sick of Sudoku and finding crosswords too conventional, allow me to introduce you to Jotto.  I have no idea how I found out about this addictive and frustrating little words and letters game, but it's too late to blame them now.  You're welcome.

Your turn.  Kick out some of your Cranium Clutter in Comments.

Of Fate, Fifty, Daniel Day-Lewis, And The Vagaries Of Faith

Every once in a while, the Fates conspire in a vast...conspiracy against me. "Ha ha," they chortle gleefully. "Let's remind Nance that Life is far beyond her silly, futile, grasping efforts at Control! Does she really think that at age fifty she can sail along with no gales of difficulty? That she can look forward to a sunny horizon with calm seas and starry nights, her course clearly charted ahead? If she does, she would be very sadly mistaken."

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Daniel Day-Lewis. Or what is left of him. I know. I'll give you a minute.

...

This is one of the most painful moments of my Life. I hardly know where to begin. It's not like I haven't been through this before, you know. I've discussed Daniel Day-Lewis's...appearance issues ad nauseum. He's so Hard To Love/Be Obsessed With, you know? Oh, sure, he's had his moments, and I've stuck by him. Yet...geeze. I mean, look at him. He's only 52. I have no problem with anyone embracing his grey hair; I applaud anyone for defying the movie star pressures of the Youth Movement, but can he not find a decent hairstylist? That haircut looks downright institutional. And as my Readers can undoubtedly surmise, what cuts deepest is that tie. What a horror it is. It looks like something made from a remnant of fabric from a transvestite parody of Spamalot. Aqua shirt, black sportcoat, purple chainmail tie...what a complete and total devastation compared to the sexy splendor that was this:

I'm just saying.

Oh, that's not fair, you say. That picture is of a character in a movie. And it's almost 20 years ago. Give the guy a break!

Shut up. I most certainly will not. This man has the wherewithal to look eleventy times better than he does. There is no reason for that tie. Or that haircut. And certainly no reason for continually disappointing me. I have had it with you, Daniel Day-Lewis. From now on, I am going to be shallow and vapid. I am going to chase pretty little dilettantes instead of you and your towering talent. You leave me no choice.

DoN readers, proffer me a new Candidate for Obsession in comments. I'm ready to chase after someone pretty who is worthy of my love. Besides, DD-L's newest film is a musical. Ugh.

Back In The Dating Pool

My husband and I are dating, and I highly recommend it. Dating one's husband, that is, not you dating my husband. Obviously, he's taken. We've just decided to begin going out with one another again, just like Old Times--you know, back in the Eighties. (That's the 1980s for those of you ever-so witty DoN readers who like to imagine yourselves quite the youngsters. Sigh.) Hmmm...actually, we met in 1977, so we dated in the late seventies, got married in 1981, so I guess we actually dated in both decades, but--

But I digress. The point, and I believe I do have one, is this:

It's astonishing that those Things We Used To Do are, in fact, still out there! Are you all aware of this? And, you do not have to do only one of them in a day! Even if you are no longer a teenager, it is entirely permissible to, say, go to dinner and go shopping and go to a movie ALL IN THE SAME DAY! That is a date! And you can go on one with your husband!

I. KNOW!

Listen, don't feel bad if you're sitting there totally blown away by this. I know I was when I first figured this out a few weeks ago and then broke the news to Rick that what we had been slowly doing over the past month or so was actually "dating." But once we realized it, we embraced it.

No more Saturdays spent at the grocery store and bank and quickie oil-change places for us! No longer was his weekend attire going to be old college sweatshirts and paint-spattered jeans. That life was over. As a matter of fact, Rick got so into it, he didn't even hesitate when the saleslady helped him shrug into a gorgeous Michael Kors sportsjacket. (Of course, it helped tremendously that it was on sale.) He wore it yesterday on our date. He also wore cologne, dark denim jeans with no paint splatters, and shoes that were not his work boots.

We started off on a little shoe shopping trip for me. I haven't bought shoes in ages, and I've been feeling bereft in that area. That, and the foot of snow on the ground here left me in a sort of Fashion Funk. Thankfully, there were clearance sales, and I picked up two pairs of deadly sexy shoes for less than $65 total.

The first pair is a wicked little pair of black lace-ups that plays off of the old-lady sensible shoes that your grandma used to wear a long time ago. Vivienne Westwood showed a lot of these, but these are made by, believe it or not, Aerosole. I don't know if you can see the detail or not, but they have a great stack heel and lots of stitching. Very witchy. Great with a skirt or pants.

The second pair is made by my shoe god, Franco Sarto. He can put a heel of about eleven inches on a shoe and it will still be the most comfortable shoe in the world. These are steel grey suede and very sexy. I am glad I waited this long to find my perfect pair of grey pumps because these are it.

We had to drive to two stores to find shoes that I loved at the price I would pay because I am both picky and cheap. There is also the fact that I will not buy spring shoes now with a foot of crappy snow on the ground. As we drove, we chatted and laughed and held hands and talked politics and music.

After scoring the shoes we decided to get lunch because we were going to the afternoon movie! I know! (Yes, this is the man who hates to go to movies "in the middle of the day because it always makes me tired and then it's dark when we come out and the whole day is gone.") We got a nice lunch at a restaurant where we sat down and did not use paper napkins or plastic cutlery. Then we went to see There Will Be Blood so that I could finally witness Daniel Day-Lewis's brilliant Oscar-winning performance. (And let me just say here that oh my word his performance is not only riveting but downright scary.)

During the movie I never took my coat off because it was so frikking cold in that theater. Horrid. I was freezing. And because it was the weekend and we live in Ohio where everyone eats between the hours of 5 and 7, all restaurants around us were packed to the rafters when the film let out at 6:15. Knowing that we'd have to wait forever to get seated and I'd be eating with my coat on anyway, we opted for Chinese takeout at home in the comfort of our toasty little house. In our jammies.

For those of you keeping score, that's: shopping (2 pair shoes), lunch, movie, dinner. A pretty darn good date.

Tomorrow, he's ordering concert tickets for a June date. He's really getting good at this.

Back With A Vengeance: DD-L, Bunnies, Politics, Polls, Fashion, Brian Williams, And Snow! Don't Blame Me; I'm Just Capturing It All For Posterity

I shall do my utmost to keep this post relatively brief--in the Dept. of Nance definition of the term, you understand--but there is so much clattering around in my cranium that I have to set it free.

Firstly, I could feel the breeze of your collective sigh of relief when Helen Mirren announced that My Crush, Daniel Day-Lewis, had won the Oscar for Best Actor on Sunday night. And then, I experienced the immediate vast, sucking vacuum of your collective gasp when he took the stage in his Audrey Hepburn-esque black skinny-pants and brown suede Oxfords a la Hushpuppies. I offer absolutely no excuses, for, as I have made it abundantly clear many posts before, My Man is an artiste who is not bounded by The Whims Of Fashion.

Besides, I blame his wife.

After all, every single one of you female DoN readers knows that, were it not up to you, your husband/boyfriend/paramour would be out there wearing a shocking ensemble of his own device that would only change when A) he got too fat for it and had to replace it with one exactly like it; B) it became so filthy that it stood on its own in the corner and it had to be laundered or replaced by an exact duplicate from a discount mart; or C) he borrowed another one from a friend. Do not lie to me! You know this is true! The wife is the X Factor.

Sadly, the evidence is all too abundantly clear. Ladies and gentlemen, I offer Exhibit A:
Urg.

How can DD-L be expected to fall into line, fashion-wise, when his Best Influence is dressed like some sort of Victorian streetwalker who appears to have been invited to a Halloween fete, the theme of which is "Harlequin Dog Show Birthday Party"?

Sigh. At least his hair did not have a ton of product in it like it did at the SAG awards. And he WON! Moving on.

It delights me beyond words--though you know I shall struggle to find some. La!--that the wise marketers at 7Up have seized upon the Untapped Bunny Market for their beverage. Over the weekend, I saw this commercial which featured enterprising bunnies who, at the end of the ad, have a bit of a gastric outburst. There is not as much Bunny Usage or Exposure as I would have liked, but it's a start, anyway.

Another bit of news that causes me squirmalicious happiness is this: A new American Research Group poll shows just 19% of Americans approve of the way The Angel of Death is handling his job as president and 77% disapprove. These are the lowest ever approval marks in the survey's history. #43 is often heard to duck questions regarding the "achievements" of his presidency by saying that it is for "history to decide." Well, you keep makin' it and we'll keep trackin' it!

Finally, I am at home and at my leisure today thanks to a Snow Day. We are getting 6-10 inches of the stuff, and it will give me a chance to catch up. I will not, however, be catching up on The Tie Report. It will be just too entirely tedious to watch three days of The NBC Nightly News on the computer screen and try to come to terms anew with Brian Williams' continued indifference to my sage fashion advice and spot-on critiques. Besides, if you've been keeping up either here at the sidebar or over at The Tie Report, you already know February's a lost cause.

From UFOs To DD-L: Officially, Of Course

For seven long, long, long years now, I have tried with all my heart not to let my antipathy toward a certain resident of Texas completely sour my entire outlook toward the whole state. I mean, I have some loyal readers of the Dept. who live in Texas and are actual living, breathing Democrats. But now, after reading the news lately, I just have to ask some of you out there:

Are you all crazy, or what?

Everyone down there in the Lone Star State is all wrapped up in seeing UFOs. It's gotten to be practically an epidemic. People from Stephenville who witnessed a UFO and caught it on video (Why is it that everyone who has a video camera also seems to have a southern accent? Have you ever noticed that on "America's Funniest Home Videos?") were even interviewed on "Larry King Live"! The whole town is into being The UFO Capital of the USA now, and get this--Stephenville hopes to become a UFO landing spot. We know this is true; it says so on CNN.

This leads me to wonder: will this be An Official Designation? If so, will there be Paperwork involved? And, if this does occur, can anyone file Said Paperwork for Official Designations? Because, if so, then I want to file one immediately.

And Daniel Day-Lewis is involved.

Allow me to explain.

As Dept. readers already know, I have been obsessed, in varying degrees, with Mr. Day-Lewis since 1992 and it has not been an easy task. His interminable hiatuses between films, his maddening refusal to reprise his Romantic Hero role a la Hawkeye in The Last of the Mohicans, his reprehensible lack of fashion sense, his horrific bald, concentration camp-like gaunt appearance after his last commercial film Gangs of New York, and then his terrible year of looking like the Gorton's Fisherman while doing press for his wife's little indie film...all of this added up to a very off-putting time for The Obsession. I consoled myself with memories and the fact that I was lofty enough and smartypants enough to Care Deeply For His Art.

Which was bullshit.

I switched over to Johnny Depp like everybody else. Come on.

Anyway. Now, Daniel Day-Lewis comes out of his self-imposed...whatever...and makes a new film and gets tons of accolades for it. His performance in There Will Be Blood has already gotten him a Golden Globe, an Oscar nomination, a SAG nomination, and a bunch of critic awards. He's out there doing press and interviews and, more importantly, he looks like this:

Oh. My. God. It's the Old Daniel. And by "old" I mean the Daniel Day-Lewis that got me all...er...interested before. So.

Back to my original point.

And I do have one.

I would like to file Official Paperwork to designate the Dept. as The Daniel Day-Lewis Landing Spot. And I don't want to have to go on "Larry King Live" to do it. Unless Daniel Day-Lewis is a guest, too. Then I'm all over him...er...it.

Merci, Gracias, Dankie, Amyaji Chezu Tinbade, Yokoke, Dank Je, Mahalo

OUR COMMENTERS!

Now that it's deeply November, we here in the U.S. of A. have entered into that dangerous Wad O' Time known as **THE HOLIDAYS**. (Of course, if you believe the Retail Giants, we entered into that WO'T right around September 30th and never get out of it until July. Except on February 15th, when we are allowed to take a small breath right before they put out Cadbury Cream Eggs and chocolate bunnies and bikinis and sunblock. Because you know, then it is time for Easter and Memorial Day and Fourth of July. But I digress. Who, me? La.)

In the midst of all of these festivities and hubbubberies (I did just make up a new plural there), it is easy to lose track of things that are important to us, the blogging community. Born out of this concern and exigence was Thank Your First Commenter Day, a blogging community holiday brainchild of Neil, host of Citizen of the Month. On the Wednesday before Thanksgiving 2005, Neil decided to use his blog to thank his very first commenter for giving him some validation for putting himself out there in the blogosphere. He suggested that all his fellow bloggers do the same. I did that and thanked my first commenter, St. Jim of So. Maryland for commenting on one of my very first posts back in my early days of blogging, now over 2 years and some 204 posts ago. Even though St. Jim is a friend of mine, it still was exciting to have a comment and some feedback on the Internets. Regular visitors to the Dept. may notice that St. Jim has been in absentia for some time now. Perhaps I have thanked him too vociferously and he now thinks I am stalking him. Which I am not. (I don't stalk anyone these days, except maybe occasionally Daniel Day-Lewis and that is primarily out of habit. A bad, old habit that is, like smoking for some people, hard to break and almost instinctive in nature.)

Sigh.

Bearing that in mind, I am adapting Thank Your First Commenter Day this year a bit and simply thanking all my commenters. Let's face it, all of us bloggers are a bit vain and/or egotistical in our own way, or we wouldn't be putting it out there on the Internets for everyone. We would be squirreling our innermost thoughts away in password-protected Word documents or scribbling them in inky longhand on countless spiral notebooks hidden in cartons deceptively marked "Tax Receipts 1985-1990" under the steps. We want to be read. And, more importantly, we want to know we've been read!

I love my commenters! DO YOU HEAR THAT? I LOVE YOU, MY COMMENTERS! I love that you read DEPT. OF NANCE and that you have something to say. Being naturally chatty myself, I automatically want to respond to you. So I do. In comments. Such fun! Thanks a bunch for chatting along with me. And if you've never commented before, I hope sometime that you do. And, St. Jim, thanks again. And sorry if I've frightened you. Sigh. It's only once a year. Tradition, you know. And as for you, DD-L, oh never mind. I'm so over you it's not even funny.

Why Daniel Day-Lewis And Ohio Are Really Irritating Me

This morning I got an email that irritated me on two levels: one, the fact that I live in Ohio and two, the fact that a certain famous person steadfastly refuses to do what I want. At present, I have no control over either of these things, so I guess you could say then that the email actually frosted my cupcakes on three levels. Damn. Now I'm really pissed.

Let me explain.

My oft-AWOL friend Carrie surfaced in order to casually mention that she worked the Telluride Film Festival over Labor Day, where she shook the hand of:

Daniel Day-Lewis. Personal obsession de Nance circa 1992-present. Ever since "The Last of the Mohicans" hit the cinemas and my mother called me to tell me to go see it just because the actor who played Hawkeye was "my type." I have stuck by this man throughout the past 15 years, despite his innumerable fashion disasters, all the while hoping that he would someday come back to me. And it has been work, people. Witness:


I think I've more than made my point. As you can see by the most recent pic provided by Carrie, he has not even attempted to improve. It's like he doesn't care. It's like he doesn't even know I exist! Daniel Day-Lewis is the single most compelling argument out there for the revival of the old studio system back in the Golden Age of the big movie moguls. Back then, places like Paramount and MGM owned their stars and those people never dared appear out in public unless they were glammed up and perfectly coiffed. It was in their contract!

Also, I blame The Missus. Rebecca Miller, a filmmaker herself (daughter of the late American legend playwright Arthur Miller and who used to be an actress also) is apparently all caught up in her "art" and doesn't care what her husband looks like. Hell, judging by the photo up there, and others I've seen, she doesn't care much what she looks like, either. These two are letting a major opportunity go by to be a real filmmaking tour de force as a couple: articulate, talented, and attractive, both behind the camera and in front of it. They could be the darlings of Hollywood instead of Runners-Up on Blackwell's list and mentioned on TMZ.com and E!.

Heavy sigh.Come find me, Daniel. No matter how long it takes, no matter how far. Come find me.

All of which leads me to my other source of irritation, which is living in Ohio. Where I never see anyone famous, ever. Let's face it. It's Ohio. Oh. Boy. What do we have here to draw the famous and celebrated? Oh, yes, we do have the number one amusement park in the world, voted as such for ten years in a row. I haven't been there in 22 years, and it's 45 minutes away from me. But we have the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame...AND MUSEUM! For which the inductees receive their awards and hold their concerts...in New York City! Alas. Even our little presidential candidate isn't taken seriously here. I think you are getting my drift.

Here is a list of the famous people I have met. And by "met" I mean "have actually spoken to personally, not seen in a lecture or concert or sporting event or across a room and hollered at." Get ready. I do hope you are sitting down.
1. Otto Graham
2. Toni Morrison
3. There Is No Number Three. That's it. My list is over. I am an embarrassment.

Other bloggers have met wildly famous people. Ortizzle met a king and Paul McCartney. I have to give you hints to help you with the identities of the two that I met. (Hint: the first one is a former Cleveland Brown football player; the second, a Nobel Prize-winning author.) And now my friend in Colorado has had the luck to shake the hand of and probably chitchat with our shared obsession, Daniel Day-Lewis. At least he still looks like crap.

But the weather here sucks real bad.

Vintage Nance--Things That Make Me Giggle

DoN Takes a Look at Her Cabinet

For some reason, I started thinking about the men I've been obsessed with over the years. There haven't been a whole lot. I get to indulge my little fancies at school by hanging their pictures in my high school classroom where they are sometimes appreciated by my female students and goodnaturedly derided by the males. Here's my first official crush from my earliest days of teaching in the 80s:

Admit it; he's very handsome and nonthreatening. You saw "St. Elmo's Fire" and loved him. He was Billy, the bad boy who just needed someone to take care of him and save him from himself. Then he had the soft-core porn scene with Demi in "About Last Night" and you almost had the big "O" right there in the theater. Sigh. Heavy sigh. So cute. Still is.

Then, in the 90s--1992 to be exact--my mother called me and ordered me to see a film. I was reluctant since it had a bunch of Indian fighting in it, but she told me that the lead actor was "just my type." I went and saw it: "The Last of the Mohicans" provided me with my longest running obsession/crush, Daniel Day-Lewis.

There have been a few dalliances here and there. Notably,

only as Tristan; then only as Braveheart.

Then I discovered

who I'm pretty much still stuck on because Daniel Day-Lewis refuses to remember he is handsome and has good hair and currently looks like this:

In other words, like that smelly weird guy outside your vacation hotel who keeps saying "Havin' a good time? Need any maps tahday? Call ya a taxi? Howsabout some spare change on ya's?" I can't even defend him to my buddy Roger (whose hobby it is to abuse me for my longstanding amour) and say that he's doing this for a movie role because he's not. He just looks this way because he wants to. How sad is that? Doesn't his wife care? I mean, I would, and I'm not even an acquaintance. I've tried to quit Daniel Day-Lewis millions of times, but here's what happens. I show "The Last of the Mohicans" in my English class. And it drags me back in! I know he isn't Hawkeye anymore. I keep having faith that, one night, Daniel Day-Lewis and the missus will watch "The Last of the Mohicans" on DVD and she will turn to him and say, "Hey, Dan. Let your hair grow out for awhile. And let's make an appointment with the plastic surgeon to get that nose straightened out. It's time to re-establish you as a romantic screen hero." Mrs. Day-Lewis would be doing a lot of women and directors a big favor, let me just say it right here and right now.

In the meantime, I'll add . He's young, pretty, British, and aging well. Plus, he has a straight nose and has not yet embarrassed me by wearing bad clothes or a shaved head in public.