Elle McPhereson was the first supermodel I was aware of by name. I once bought an issue of Celebrity Skin or something like it, because they had some out-takes from the Sports Illustrated photoshoot from that year, with her topless.

I watched If Lucy Fell because Elle was in it.

The other day, I stumbled across an archive of pictures of her, and downloaded them all.

I think I'm what you'd call a fan. If I had less of a grip, I might be a stalker.

---

I got spam this morning, offering me a chance to take my lovemaking to a whole new level. Amused, I actually read the first paragraph before hitting the delete key.

It claimed that most people spent more time getting ready to go to work than getting ready to have sex.

I find this both believable, and subtly depressing.

---

I went out to the store the other night for milk and bread. It reminded me of the Great Blizzard of '95, in Raleigh, when Trish, Cynthia, Buster and I walked out of our snowbound house, down to the Harris Teeter, only to find that all the milk and bread were sold out.

Anyway, it was fairly late in the evening, and I'd already dressed for bed... sweat pants with 'Arizona' up one leg, and 'Wildcats' on the other. (Amusingly, I have no NC State sweats, and I went there far longer than I've attended the U of A). Oh, yeah, and a ratty red t-shirt.

As I was looking at frozen food, the most beautiful woman stopped at the freezer next to me. She was wearing a black cardigan, with a long skirt, and she had soft-looking carmel-colored hair piled in a loose bun on top of her head. She was wearing little round glasses, and she smiled at me.

I couldn't think of anything to say. I could, I suppose, have emulated Kirk from Gilmore Girls, and said something along the lines of, "I think you're the most beautiful woman I've ever seen... outside of, um, some really filthy magazines."

But how much of a compliment would that be? Fat slob telling you how pretty you are? Isn't that kind of like having a bum panhandle you because you look like you have a lot of money?

---

One day, walking down a street in New York City with Amy, I said, "Most women seem to want Joe Clean-Cut, which leaves me right out."

"Yeah," she said, and laughed. "You do have sort of a street-artist sensiblity to you."

Later, she said that I was a sort of romantic figure in her mind. Not like you'd see in a Meg Ryan film, though, more like the kind you'd see in an Art House.

"The kind where the protagonists tear each other to bleeding emotional shreds, and at the end, everyone's unhappy?" I asked.

"Yeah... like that."

---

"I want to go with you," he said.

"In this life," I responded, "You often don't get what you want."

As I drove away, I thought about it. What an aweful thing to say to a child. What a way to warp his hopes and dreams, right from the start. When did I become so bitter and cynical?

On the other hand, I'm not an Astronaut. I'm not living on the moon. And I'm not married to Elle McPhereson.

I took my textbook for the trig class I'd dropped, back to the store where I'd bought it. Unfortunatly, the deadline for a full refund was Monday. So I sold the book back, effectively paying $35 for the priviledge of renting it for a couple of weeks.

I've got the balance of the cost in my pocket. Later today, I'll probably spend at least part of it to buy milk and hot dogs.

I can't drink milk. I'm lactose intollerant, and depending on how strongly intolerant my body is feeling on any given day, it can be mildly unpleasant, or downright nasty.

Boy Kid, however, doesn't like soy milk. Plus, he's at the stage in his life where he needs lots of calcium.

Girl's out of money.

So I'll buy milk, and hot dogs, and maybe a couple of other things, so we can get through the next week or so, until I get paid again.

I'm giving her six weeks to be employed. That's less time than it took me to find a job, when I first came back to Tucson, but I also don't have the means to support both of them for the time it took me. I'm expecting her to be a lot less picky than I was.