"Roy, what stories do you have of the female persuasion?" you inquire, quite befuddled at the quality of my last couple of postings.

Unfortunately, I have nothing embarassing to report on that front, but I do have a tangentially related story I can share which should do a good job of lowering your opinion of me.

I was at the mall a couple of weekends before Christmas, drooling over this beautiful watch. After a particularly long session of gawking, I got pretty hungry so I headed up to the food court. After grabbing some Rubio's (my love for fish tacos is rivaled only by my love of Cobie Smulders), I looked for a seat to enjoy my fresh catches (har har).

Unfortunately, being the weeks before Christmas, seating was tight. I ended up finding a seat at the far side of the food court, by some girl who was sitting underneath a tent with a keyboard and a guitar. I figured she was gonna play some Christmas songs or something... but then... I heard... chick rock. Emo chick rock. YES!

For those of you who haven't read my journal enough, or have had the displeasure of knowing me in real life, I love chick rock. I mean, if I'm watching some crappy TV drama like Grey's Anatomy and they overlay some dramatic scene with some chick who's playing a guitar, there's a 90% chance I'm going to download get on YouTube and watch crappy fan-made music videos hop onto iTunes and preview the rest of the album.

Don't believe me? In my ACTIVE music rotation, I have the following artists: Vanessa Carlton, Michelle Branch, Meg & Dia, Ingrid Michaelson, Regina Spector... I also have a healthy helping of Sarah McLachlan, Lisa Loeb, etc.

(Speaking of which, how I ended up with such an effeminate streak is really something I should figure out. I had an inkling it has something to do with the fact that when I was younger (like in the 5th grade), my mom got me a whole slew of Judy Blume books. My earliest literature exposure was to: "Blubber", "Are You There God, It's Me, Margaret", "Superfudge", "Freckle Juice". Think about it: reading about all these coming-of-age books for girls at that age probably warped me to some degree. I mean, I was smart enough to know that *I* would never get a period, but I could have probably done without reading about it)

ANYWAYS, back to the story.

So I listened to this girl - she was decent, so I felt the urge to support her by buying a CD (it was only $5). The problem is after I bought it, the lady told me I could get it autographed for free!

Now, this poses a slight dilemma. I'm clearly out of the age range for people who should be buying independent chick rock (those old creepy guys can at least claim they're buying it for their daughters). It just felt really weird to get it autographed, but what am I supposed to do? I didn't want to own some CD that said: "To: Roy, <3 Jessica Lerner"! (I have some limits, although my constant flaunting of Ashlee Simpson's "Autobiography" may seem contrary to that fact)

So I did the first thing that popped up in my mind: when she was signing it, I tried to play it off like I was buying it for my sister. Winner = me. Actually, in retrospect, it didn't make it any less awkward. Jessica was quite gracious about it, and asked a couple of questions about my sister. She's quite a lovely person.

Anna, I am now in possession of a Jessica Lerner CD that has your name on it. But let's face it, you're never gonna want it, so I'll just hold onto it. Now if anybody finds it at my place, I can just play it off like, "Oh yeah, that's my sister's ... she left it here..."

. . .

Canadian factoid: I was researching where I could see the northern lights in Canada (Fail - guess I'll have to head to Fairbanks, AK), and discovered that Canada has very few cities at that latitude. In fact, the population of the whole Northwest Territories is 40,000 people. Chapel Hill has about 50,000 people! 40,000 people in an area twice the size of Texas!

Canada factoid #2: Canada is the second largest nation by area in the world behind Russia.