I happen to have a lot of ridiculous sweatshirts. I don’t know why, but I have lots of television show sweatshirts (Greek, Friday Night Lights), sweatshirts from colleges I did not attend, a yachting sweatshirt that I picked up at a shipyard in Amsterdam, more Vassar College hoodies than any alumni should ever own, and a few that are just ugly but I’m attached to for no particular reason.
Out of this mass of cotton and hoods, I have two favorites. One is big and gray and I always have to chew on the hood strings and sleeves when I wear it. It probably is just one big virus at this point, but I still love it. The other is a Leigh High School Panthers bright blue hoodie. Now, I didn’t actually attend Leigh High School and the only person I know who went to the school is Craig.
When Craig and I first started dating, my friend Georgia and I became obsessed with the fact that he was from such a small Nebraskan town (population 442) and went to a high school with all of 80 kids, total. We learned absolutely everything we could about that school without point blank asking Craig about it. We memorized the lunch calendar (January 7th – Soup, Cinnamon Roll, Applesauce, Cheese Stick, Carrots), learned everything about the football team (those Wendt boys are a threat!), and well, fell just under the label of “crazed stalker.”
To commemorate our love for the Panthers, Georgia kindly bought us smurf blue Leigh High School Panther hoodies, direct from Lou’s sporting goods in Fremont, NE, a mere hour away from Leigh. And when the sweatshirts were taking too long to make, Georgia called up Lou’s everyday to demand they be made at a speedier pace. We have our big city time expectations after all. Now, we both have one and agree it’s one of the highest quality (and weirdest to posess) sweatshirts on the market! As Georgia just emailed me: “I bleed Panther blue.”
Georgia made me this little number at work today. This is what we would look like if we were stars of the Leigh panthers.
G Bobs showing off the greatest sweatshirt ever made. Yes, she once washed it, slept in it and told me it looked like a smurf was murdered in her bed, but never mind that! It's like a second skin!
On Saturday during the drive to West Virginia, Craig and I got into a very deep meaningful conversation about men’s underwear. That’s how we roll on the weekends – we discuss the meaning of life, nuclear disarmament and the intricacies of undies.
I can be rather picky when it comes to what’s going on in the underwear department, both for myself and for Craig. For him I like ‘em tight. Solid colored boxer briefs so snug I can barely take them off. Yes, he may have to sacrifice breathing or walking like a normal human being, but isn’t it worth it?
As we glided towards the Maryland/West Virginia border, Craig started laughing like a crazed country boy, remembering a story from his Leigh, Nebraska days. ”Are you sure you want to hear this,” he kept asking while cackling down the highway? “Are you really sure?” At this point I was frothing at the mouth, ready to drown myself in the Shenandoah River if he didn’t start talking.
“Well, when I was 15, 16 I used to wear leopard print briefs. You know, to impress the ladies. All the guys did!” All the guys did? Impress the ladies? My oh my what is going on under those overalls in small town America? “You mean Michelle?” I asked referring to his high school girlfriend. “And by all the guys, you mean the whole Leigh High School football team was roaming around in leopard print?” Craig laughed still zooming down the highway. “Well, Chad had a pair! So did Mark, but we called him Boog. And he was a bigger guy too.” By this point I’m laughing so hard I think I might asphyxiate myself from the hysterics. But Craig just keeps going. “This one night when I was 15, I got so drunk that I ended up on my front lawn in nothing but those leopards. And I could barely walk. I think I was crawling.”
As I reflect back on all the underwear I have owned in my life, I just don’t think I have anything to match the ridiculousness of Craig’s leopard briefs. But there is always next weekend.
This is kind of what I imagine Craig looked like in that underwear. Man oh man I wish he had pictures.
I remember the first time I heard the Writer’s Almanac on NPR. It was my freshman year at Vassar and one of those great snowy days. My roommate Abbie had this candle that smelled like Christmas trees that we burned every second of the day starting December 1st and I was huffing it while listening to the radio. Abbie had 5 am Spanish class for crazies and I was taking my time before my lazy people classes. Then, all of a sudden, a wonderful soothing voice came on the radio and recited a poem by someone dead and spectacular and then proceeded to tell me all the important literary events that happened on that day, some day in December 1998.
Since then I’ve been hooked. In college I was always able to catch Keillor on the radio, but since then it’s been the internet that brings me my daily poetry dose. Of course now I have an iphone and the first thing I do when I wake up after cursing my alarm clock, is listen to the Writer’s Almanac on speakerphone. It’s like Garrison Keillor is in my room, swaying on my rocking chair and telling me that it’s Emily Dickinson’s birthday. It’s a perfect way to start the day.
When I lived in Tokyo, my friend who was a trader at Merrill Lynch used to send the text version to the entire trading floor after I got him hooked on it too. That is probably my biggest accomplishment in life – getting bankers to peer at poetry in the early morning.
Keillor is from Minnesota, which seems to be the hotbed for American literary talent. Hello, F. Scott. And as I am now an expert about those from the Midwest, as I am dating a Nebraskan, I can say that what I love about Keillor’s voice is that slow Midwestern drawl. Not an accent, but that, “I’m not in a hurry so let’s just sit here and recite poetry” voice of his.
My very first professional aspiration was to be a poet. I used to sit on a pile of tires in our garage and write horrific poetry about nothing. Then in high school I used to experiment to see if I was a better poet after smoking pot or after getting really drunk. Neither. Luckily for America, I no longer wish to be a poet. Just a writer of longer sentences. But I still love poetry and I love Garrison Keillor for bringing it to me every morning with his wonderful vocal chords.
I love this pic of Garrison Keillor because it makes him look like exactly what he is - an American treasure!
Never in my life did I think I would be dating someone from a Midwest town of 400 people. A football-loving, two-stepping, Nebraskan who can call cattle and is proud to be from a map dot. But even more surprising, is how happy he makes me. I’ve mentioned this before, but my college nickname was Snobby Tanabe. I’m from a city of 600,000 people. I chided Craig for not knowing any Latin. It is very surprising that it works. But work it does.
Lately I love him because he shoveled my walk during this snow madness every morning while I slept in like a good for nothing. Before that I loved him because he agrees to my half baked ideas like trying to get biblical on the National Mall. And sometimes I love him because he has a killer bod. But most of the time, it’s just because he is who he is, one of the greatest men I have ever known.
Kissing on the kissing bridge in Vermont. Ahh, l'amour!
Last night, Craig and I decided that we would have a whole evening devoted to his Nebraska roots. As I have dragged him to the ballet and made him watch chick flicks all week long, I figured it was the least I could do. Plus, I love a cowboy. Even an “I go to Georgetown Law and got these boots at J.Crew” one. There are many urban cowboys at Nick’s. CPAs by day, line dancers by night. But Craig is not one of them. In fact, a little Travis Tritt and a plaid shirt and the man is almost frighteningly c.o.u.n.t.r.y.
I on the other hand am rather intimidated by a synchronized dance. What if I step on my neighbor’s foot? What if I slow up the line with my inferior toe taps? So when the ”El Paso Two Step” was called by a very large man named Scruff and Craig got his “let’s give it a whirl, little girl” look in his eye, I immediately hid my head in his armpit and refused to take the floor. People at Nick’s are amazing group dancers and I just don’t feel that it’s right to infringe on their space. But after two whiskeys, I let Craig push me around the joint and yelled at him for traveling too much. He was just so darn excited to be back in his element that I’m surprised he didn’t start yee-hawing his way across the Mason-Dixon line.
It was fun to see Craig happy as a lark and play hillbilly for a night. And let’s be honest, I absolutely love any excuse for big hair, too much makeup, push up bras and Jack Daniels.
This is a pic from my birthday two years ago. Yes, it was held at Nicks land of "cowboys," Veterans' night, and really cheap shots.
I never thought I would be willfully spending one of my rare long weekends in small town USA. I also never thought I would be happy as a lark dating someone from a town of 400 in fly-over country. But there I was perched on hay bales, rounding up horses, eating at Applebees, and rah-rahing at eight-man football games right along side a born and bred Husker.
Buying breakfast at a gas station every morning was certainly a memorable experience, as was visiting the world’s largest porch swing, and kissing by the tractor pull tracks. But the highlight of the trip was when one of the local farmers explained to me how lucrative “haulin’ hog semen for Farmer Frankenhoff,” was. I thought I heard him wrong and gave a royal nod and smile, but he really was talking to me about the moneymaker known colloquially as pig sperm.
For a girl whose nickname is Snobby Tanabe, you could say I was a tad out of my element. But hell, if Eva Gabor could do it in “Green Acres,” so can I!
Just another beautiful road in Nebraska...until your agoraphobia starts to kick in.
This is the world's largest porch swing. Though my number one goal is now to make a larger porch swing, I was thrilled to find this large man in overalls perched on this one.
I admit I was a tad petrified when I saw thousands of foam-corn-hats bobbing at my first University of Nebraska football game. My knowledge of the sport has been gleaned from the TV show “Friday Night Lights” and watching preppy East Coasters throwing the pigskin around in a Kennedy-esque manner. Craig, who took me to my very first college football game, played Husker football, which I soon learned is akin to walking on water for Nebraskans. The state is a sea of football paraphernalia and red cotton casuals. While I love a little physical violence exhibited by muscular men in spandex pants, it took me a while to get into the game.
First of all, I wore a slinky shirt purchased at some bourgeois paradise because I thought it looked kind of farmish. I didn’t know I would be stoned by cowhands if I didn’t wear red and bought a University of Nebraska shirt at once out of fear for my life. I also might have made a few references to my Husker beau about “group think,” and “1984-like mind control,” when 70,000 white people started singing the same song with their fists in the air.
But after ingesting roughly 2,000 calories, high-fiving a boyscout, and playing tonsil hockey every time a mysterious first down was achieved, I decided that I too had a little Husker in my heart.
The Huskers may not be having their best season (it's sad that I know this) but when Craig played they were really good. So I have to pretend to like football. It's that game where the hot guys slap each other on the ass after something good happens.
Craig in Sports Illustrated when he played under Coach Osborne. If you have a vagina and you're not from Nebraska, you probably don't know who that is. While I used to think watching football was as fun as lighting yourself on fire, I'm trying to change my ways.
Me in the shirt I bought so the sea of red wouldn't throw corn at me. I blend, don't you think?
Craig is from a Midwestern town with five streets, no traffic lights, roughly 400 people, and a prize-winning county fair. He grew up with football, fresh air, and good values, which is probably why he is wonderful and will even say yes to skirting the law and trying to get biblical on the Mall.
Despite his willingness to drop trou inches from the Lincoln Memorial, he is the most moral and well-intentioned person I have ever known. This makes me feel Satanic in comparison, but everyone needs a Ying to their Yang. The same night we tried to have multiple orgasms on the National Mall, he taught me a dance move called “the pretzel,” which he can do alarmingly well. If you are from a town with a stop sign and your neighbors didn’t have hogs named Porky McGee, you are probably unfamiliar with it.
Craig likes flavored seltzer water and keeping things shipshape. He has a nose so small I question his ability to take in enough oxygen, the body mass index of a racehorse, and kindly reminds me that life doesn’t have to be so complicated. Oh and when he lost his virginity, he had a mullet. I’m still trying to come to terms with that one.
I decided it would be wrong to have sex like monkeys close to sacred monuments like the Vietnam Wall or the Lincoln Memorial. How kind of me! So instead we attempted to get biblical on a fully exposed park bench coveted by curious tourists with an abundance of cameras. We tried, we failed, we will try again.
![[del.icio.us]](http://nakedthanks.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/delicious.png)
![[Digg]](http://nakedthanks.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/digg.png)
![[Facebook]](http://nakedthanks.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/facebook.png)
![[Google]](http://nakedthanks.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/google.png)
![[LinkedIn]](http://nakedthanks.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/linkedin.png)
![[Technorati]](http://nakedthanks.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/technorati.png)
![[Twitter]](http://nakedthanks.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/twitter.png)
![[Yahoo!]](http://nakedthanks.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/yahoo.png)
![[Email]](http://nakedthanks.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/email.png)
I remember the first time I heard the Writer’s Almanac on NPR. It was my freshman year at Vassar and one of those great snowy days. My roommate Abbie had this candle that smelled like Christmas trees that we burned every second of the day starting December 1st and I was huffing it while listening to the radio. Abbie had 5 am Spanish class for crazies and I was taking my time before my lazy people classes. Then, all of a sudden, a wonderful soothing voice came on the radio and recited a poem by someone dead and spectacular and then proceeded to tell me all the important literary events that happened on that day, some day in December 1998.
