I asked a friend how she was doing the other day, and she wailed at me: "I want my LIFE back." She had a baby in April and is starting to go a little stir crazy, I think. Tonight I sort of will feel like I have my life back. SkooterPie and I are meeting friends for dinner at a swank Downtown restaurant that serves sushi and then we're catching the trolley for a ride down to the Cannon Center for Performing Arts to see the author David Sedaris. It's a rare night out. And on a school night even! I could not be more excited.

This comes almost a week after a phone call I answered at home made me feel pretty pathetic about my place in the cultured world. The phone call was from the Nielsen Media Research (the people who track audiences for TV shows among other things). The guy calling wanted to do a survey about movies in the Memphis area.
"How many movies have you seen in the last two months?" he asked.
I have seen exactly one movie in the last two months: Little Miss Sunshine. I went by myself on my birthday. So, I told him one. And he paused.
"Is there anyone else at home who is a big movie watcher?" he asked.
"Not really," I said. "We have a child, so we don't get out much."
And that pretty much ended our survey. I wonder what the cutoff point was? Three movies in the last two months? Four? I've seen three movies in the last six months, and two of them were kids movies: Pirates of the Caribbean and Monster House. Other than that? I honestly can't remember. Oh! The Devil Wears Prada. I loved that movie. That's it. I think that's the total number of movies I've seen in a theater ALL YEAR. I used to be such a big movie-goer.

April's babysitting for us. I really hope Jesse behaves for her. She's already told me she'll bust his butt if he doesn't. She means it too.