Yeah, she looks great, but my hand keeps twitching to brush her hair out of her eyes.

*I* would go apeshit with my hair in my face, BUT that style looks fetching on JZ. 100%.

My thoughts exactly. JZ's cut is adorable, but my hair, no matter what the cut, gets pushed behind my ears. Like, leaving the salon -- to the tune of my stylist's mournful sigh. And if I couldn't tuck it behind my ears? Oh dear. There would either be copious amounts of product, or a lot of frustrated huffing as I blew it out of my eyes.

In truth it does not sit in her eyes all day. She is styled for the camera.

And for those of you who were following my Little League reports, Here's Ellen, the girl who had to get over her ball fear.

She's batting lefty here only because she doesn't want to be in the puddle on the right hand side.

EM told me something I didn't know about Ellen. Her Mom died and her father married a woman who had been widowed. They each had three kids - now they have a blended family of 6. Very Brady Bunch except for the obvious tragedy in the middle.

I really, really wanted something craxy and asymmetrical. But, ugh, I cannot stand the way I look in pictures lately -- skin all blotchy and nose aggressively cocked to one side, and big big chins. Bleah.

Anyhow, though, you can see how beautifully the color turned out.

And now I wanna see all the baseball team pictures.

But, ugh, I cannot stand the way I look in pictures lately

You = craaaaazzzzzeeeeee.

So it turns out Annabel's cough is no biggy, but the infected bugbites require a 7-day course of oral and topical antibiotics. Really need to work on this knack she has for getting sick as we're going out of town.

::thumbs crooked nose at Teppy::

P-C, is it okay if I ask what would happen if you told your folks no? More of the same selective not-hearing-you as in the past? What would happen if sometime between now and two years from now, you stumbled upon a cool, smart, Veronica Mars-watching woman who recognized you as the prize you are and pounced? Would you pounce back, or push her away, or would your family rend you limb from limb?

I'm sorry if this is all horribly nosy... I can only imagine how difficult it is for you to negotiate the very different expectations your family and the larger USian culture have of you, and I'm really rather fond of you and it stresses me out just trying to imagine how you manage. I want to crawl inside your brain and look out from in there and see what you see.

I would say close to eighty percent of the time I have conversed with my mom since I left for college, she has told me not to engage in lufroo, or affairs. It's either a command or a question with the expected answer of no. This has been my life for the last six years. I am not to do anything that would bring shame on the family name.

A cousin of mine in India eloped with a woman who was Indian but of a different caste. His parents (my dad's brother and his wife) basically disowned him for a year. The couple had a child. His parents finally did accept him back and gave them a proper marriage.

Then they got a divorce. This was to be a lesson to me about how I shouldn't choose my own wife. He then married someone his parents chose. They got a divorce too. I think there might be a lesson there too, but it can't be applied to me. I met his third wife when I went to India over Christmas.

So they're absolutely terrified I'll pull something like that. Someone Gujarati gets married to a Punjabi girl, and I say so what, and that kind of talk scares my mom. I...I really can't even fathom what I would do, JZ. I don't have a fucking clue. I like to think I would stand up for myself or something, or maybe they would understand and there would be no problems, but they talk out of both sides of their fucking mouths. They tell me how it's so okay for me to have friends who are girls, yet any time I so much as mention a girl, she's immediately under suspicion of being my girlfriend. I am being a perfectly normal fucking person, and I can't tell them about it because I don't want to deal with the stupid accusations.

I...I really don't know. And I'm crying now so I'll stop.

Here's what I hope. I hope P-C accidentally falls in love with a gorgeous, Gujarati (sp?) woman, and she with him, quite outside of his parents' machinations, and that everyone lives happily ever after.

That would certainly be optimal, and yeah, you spelled it right.

Also, your hair is great, JZ.

Here's Ellen, the girl who had to get over her ball fear.

Is she in the clay in socks!?!

JZ, very sexay. I often want something craxy and asymmetrical but I don't have enough hair. I like the cut I have now quite a lot.

I'm going to dinner tonight with a gift certificate given to me by a customer because she called me at home over the weekend with personal computer questions. Sweet.

In other Holt household news, Bobby finished his 2nd week of drama camp and they had their 2nd week end performance. Too dorky for words. I have it all on video.