For some years, I imposed limitations on myself regarding the use of exclamation points. They seemed an overzealous little number, with their dots and their slashes. It felt entirely wrong using them. I'd use maybe three a year, and was prone to sigh in disgust if I encountered them in a work of fiction.

Then came the flood of inappropriate exclamation points, which are commonplace (I surmise) in most workplaces in America that do not employ a stylebook. I regularly receive emails along the lines of:

RED CROSS BLOOD DRIVE: VAN OUTSIDE!!!!!!!!!

Or:

HEALTH INFORMATION AVAILABLE IN LOBBY!!!

HAVE A GREAT DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The worst are emails that are actually about some topic and then end with:

THANKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh, they make me want to scream.

Now, I've mellowed on the exclamation point front. I became convinced that with the crimes discussed above going on a Yay! here and there was no big deal. Also, there was a sense of reclamation and irony all at once in using the exclamation point. So, if it seems I overuse exclamation points sometimes, please know I'm only half-serious. Please!!!

I will now be amending my original limits to say, twenty exclamation points a year to be used for good news.

And today was a day of great, great news. A great friend of mine wrote with exciting news of secrecy and life-changingness! My mother wrote with news that her test results came back just fine and there'll be no horrible treatment for horrible disease!!! (!!!!)

And that's more than enough good news for me. But I'd better stop now, lest I hit my yearly quota.

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I blame Terry. I have been to ebay. At first, it was just because of his recommendation last Saturday night for a Burt Reynolds movie about Nashville, W.W. AND THE DIXIE DANCE KINGS. He said:

Reynolds is fabulously charming, Carney and Beatty (and everybody else in the cast, for that matter) dead solid perfect. As if all that weren't enough, there's even a scene shot in the back room of Tootsie's Orchid Lounge in Nashville, right across the street from the stage door of the Ryman Auditorium, where I sat and watched the Grand Ole Opry on a hot summer night 31 years ago. Et in Arcadia ego!

I have managed to live most of my life in the south and avoid eating chicken-fried steak (to the best of my knowledge, though it turns out my parents pulled a few fast ones on me here and there in childhood; RIP Jack the Cow). But still, I had to see such a movie. There was one obvious solution. I wasted not a minute in heading to ebay, and I bid and I won and for the paltry sum of $11 a video of said classic is en route. (There is some comfort in knowing that others have taken more expensive routes, though of course, they apparently get their merchandise far more quickly.)

At any rate, as I've learned in the past and doubtless will learn again, no one can stop looking through the vast junkheap of ebay after finding their much sought-after Carrie the Musical video, or even original Lynda Barry art. One must always look further, bid frivolously. Luckily, one almost always loses. There has been much frivolity at the keyboard in the past couple of days (oh, when Christopher discovered the biking clothes!), and rather than send you to the abyss let me just tell you one true thing I have seen. I have seen that jeans endorsed by Oprah Winfrey will apparently sell for ten times as much as all other jeans (lest you thought jeans were more or less equal in the universe).

I'll report back on the movie once it arrives and it is viewed with great ceremony and possibly homemade biscuits. Very excited. (Oh, and go pick up A TERRY TEACHOUT READER, which apparently is potentially available now.)

Good night all.

worm: "Things To Forget," Sarah Harmer (new album out next week!)

today's fave post: "Self-Improvement, Competive Sport" at Cup of Chicha

namecheck: Chris "Whisky Grip for All-Time" McLaren