A Hutchmo Christmas I was standing in one of those discount city sort of places called Jewelry and Handbag Warehouse that has some of the most goddawful ugly items for purchase I've ever seen. A plethora of UT handbags, puppy pictures on purses and a large variety of what Squirrel Queen calls trendy stupid crap. The reasons for entering this fine establishment still escape me, and I was experiencing some anxiety over the fact that I had little to nothing bought for Christmas. Then the phone rang. I noticed it was a middle Tennessee number, which I get occasionally but usually I expect these calls. Standing in the fluorescent hell of the Jewelry and Handbag Warehouse, I needed a respite so I didn't ignore the call and picked it up. "Hey, it's Hutch." And with those words, the evening took on a new brighter tone. We met at the local sushi, bait and tackle restaurant and just chatted. He'd seen Lynnster and Lindsey in Memphis, but our meeting was completely impromptu. One thing the Nashville set of bloggers doesn't realize is that being that I live in Hooterville, each blogger meeting is a big deal to me. It's not something that can happen everyday, so it's a treat when it happens. John H. is a cool cat. We've met several times and I've said on more than one occasion that I'm smitten with him. I started reading him about a year and a half ago and, to be honest, he's one of those guys that inspired me to start blogging. He gave sage words of advice that I'll keep to the cuff, he kept (repeatedly) saying he had a dull blog (WRONG-O, Blog boy. Your blog is great), we discussed people reading our blogs that we knew pre-blogging and the fact that we both despise it when people say "You should ..." Neither one of us like to be should on and here we agree again. I talked about losing some direction after the election and my worries that I've gotten too personal on here recently. We discussed my meltdown of a couple of weeks ago. He brought up that Lindsey and Aunt B. are the two women whose writing on feminism is so exquisitely wonderful and how they put their thoughts right out there. In a side note, Squirrel Queen said after we left, "You know, we both work in fields dominated by men that by the time I get home I just want to do squirrel pictures and you just want to do whatever the hell it is you do, so in many ways we live it everyday." (In case you didn't know, she is usually the only broad covering sporting events around here. She went through so much crap at the beginning of her career, you would be surprised. Now she just dazzles the coaches and the boys because she's wicked smart about almost any athletic sport you could imagine. Not fencing or curling, but she knows quite a bit. Ask Smiley or The Dog Doc.) Back to the story. The interesting point John made was, and I agree, B. and Lindsey write about the subtext of feminism and it continually amazes all three of us, it's not just the average, as John put it, "Women make less than men" sort of thing. It's more on the fact that they look at the overall underbelly of years of learned behavior from men and women and how it correalates into the behavior we see today. Heady stuff. We also both read Carter and we like it when B. takes him on. It's a good thing. We agree he's the Yang to Brittney's Ying and WKRN keeps getting it right. We also had one of those discussions about being progressive liberals, which I consider I am, and the fact that we do try to be kind and supportive to everyone, no matter their political affiliation. We talked about Black Santa booking from his house, and how he is strategically composing a plan to get him back. (There was sadness in his words for his absent friend.) You see, I needed Hutch's words and karma was working in our favor last night. He's focused, knows what he believes and in turn, it helps me because I've been floundering a bit. So here's a toast to Hutch, with whom I'm smitten and who has become dear to me and makes life so much better during these warm, balmy days of winter.  ¶ 12/20/2006 05:44:00 AM