Kilt Sporters vs. The Abercrombie & Fitch Boys

I am suffering from a fever. A Scottish fever. It burns, unrequited, deep in my soul. Fire licks my veins in exsquiste torment. I damn near lust after the harsh hills and alluring accents of the Highlands.

Thus, I have been reading just about anything I can get my hands on that have to do with kilt-sport'n lads and sharp-tonged lasses. This both soothes and fuels my fever. I am faced with strong, braw, honorable, righteous, die-to-protect you men with rolling brr's and bone-melting, Fabio hair. Granted, they are all fictitious and ALL are set within the 1700s or earlier, but the point is, they're fabulous.

Here's a nonfiction: I've been to Scotland within the last 10 years. The men may not wear kilts very often, or have Fabio hair, but they are all still strong, braw, honorable, righteous, and still have the instinct to kill or die for their woman/family. It's imbedded in their senses of masculinity. Must be the Pict blood. Or the Viking. Whatever.

Most of them also still have the rolling brr's that make your eyes flutter.

Uh-hghm. Anyway. . .

Why, oh why, is our substitute often an Abercrombie & Fitch Boy? You know the type. Obsessed more with clothes than most women, hair-conscious, perfectly-groomed men whose role models for masculinity are sports players, actors and other highly visible-but-not-necessarily-"masculine" men. They also love themselves more than anyone else.

Where are the men who COULD crush you with a rock or ravish you in some bushes, but don't because they KNOW what honor and tenderness is? I'd take a man who hadn't shaven in days and whose hair was mussed, and whom I could also count on without a doubt to handle the most terrible difficulties in life without flinching or losing his sense of romance any day over the Abercrombie & Fitch Boy.

Don't get me wrong. I deeply love my very American fiance (his tendency to lean towards an Abercrombie Boy notwithstanding). It's just that sometimes, I wish he'd had different models. Or he'd been born in Scotland and would proudly wear a kilt and knock the teeth out of anyone who called it a skirt.

Written Inflections

I have several dear friends who I see only about once a year - if that. My favorite memories of my college life are with these dear 5 people. (You know who you are). I try my best to contact each of them, but it's never on a regular basis. Getting an e-mail from one is always such a great surprise.

The other day, I got one I'm still trying to figure out.

One of my friends wrote these lines in her e-mail: "You look beautiful!" "Girl, what happened to you?" "I've asked the others what happened, and they didn't know." "I've seen you twice in about 3 years and, like, you totally changed." "I want to know what happened." "I care about you."

WHAT!?

Now, the first comment is a no brainer (and she was referring to some pictures of mine). Thanks for the compliment. But the rest . . . well, let's just say I can't decide if I should be flattered or offended. The question, "What happened to you?" minus vocal inflections, can be taken so many different ways. I can't decide if it's the total-nerd-turned-total-babe at the high school reunion "What happened to you?" or the you-look-like-you've-just-been-hit-by-a-train "What happened to you?" And it's really the last bit, "I care about you" that really throws it off. Is the writer worried about me? What is that supposed to mean anyway?

Today, I'm just wishing more people knew how to write inflectively because it would certainly lessen my confusion.