"i'm a really good listener, is all."
Wednesday, Mar. 29, 2006 @ 11:13 a.m.

sitting in her pickup truck on the way to a cattle show, with my entry in a trailer attached at the rear and erstwhile serenaded by the dixie chicks on am790, stephanie mccannell engaged me in conversation about the reasons i had rejected a recent invitation to a country music concert. my excuses, aside from being neither kind nor fair, all pertained to the nature of the boy who asked me to go with him. most of them related to his attire, occupation and musical taste.

stephanie was not taken in by my embarassment. furthermore, i knew she was too sensible to have ever actually experienced embarrassment for herself, or to understand its purpose in the world at large. and while i would secretly like to feel that she sided with the oosterhoff boy because everything i didn't like about him was pretty much everything she�d ever known, i'm sure she wasn't intending to change my mind about him or their mutually rustic background as she sucked back the last of her cigarette, tossed the butt out the open window and said in her very casual way, "you can give any nice guy a chance. it doesn't mean you gotta marry him."

although in the short term her advice resulted in a very awkward few hours of driving around rural ontario with mr. oosterhoff apologising for not attending the concert (during which he grinned to a point where i began to wonder if something was wrong with his mouth) in the long term it means i have a story and some very down-home advice to pass along to the youngun's.