I don't know. I'm not sure I've ever even written on a blackboard once. But I fantasize about elaborate presentations I'd like to do someday with an overhead projector. Does that count?

No, I didn't know about Sugar. I just read a couple of her keening, earnest columns and sort of want to kill her. She's so nice...but she cut off her father! Then she told another girl to cut off her father! Folks at home, don't do this--no, no. If someone asks, I'll explain why.

Pseud, thanks for thinking of me, though I have mixed feelings about the trend here of brainstorming a way for me to be professionally rewarded for this forum. I'm touched that you bother, particularly since it would mean less attention and fewer personal answers to all of you (both of you?). Maybe. But I don't really want to. I'm writing the pirate novel! Also, I'm pretty sure Sugar is making a dollar fifty a column, more or less, and there's nothing like low pay and a firm deadline to make me want to eat worms.

Hi Tom. My summer's been okay, thanks for asking. A little progress on the pirate novel but mostly staring at it. Might start typing all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy for a while and see what happens.

That's easy. You already know the answer: marry him, have the babies, do it now, don't wait. Your relationship may suck in several ways but it's more than most people ever have and you're lucky to have it. And you're not trapped--I doubt that your Army man thinks of you as trapped--you're just in a situation where you're never, ever going to get everything you want. I'm disgusted to sound like your fourth-grade teacher, but honestly, in life, there's really no chance of actually getting everything you want. You can nurse a dream of it, and fight for it, but those are fairy tale dreams rather than real goals. Even when it looks like other people's fairy tale dreams have come true, they actually haven't (two words: Diana Spencer). If you're stuck on your dreams of a perfect future, consider this: it's common enough to find a man who will sleep next to you every night, but it's a rare thing to get a chance to marry your great love.

Here are a few things that might make you feel better: everyone does not get to sleep next to their husband every night and sometimes when they do, they don't want to. Life is long and people get sick of each other, even people who love each other deeply. There's something to be said for taking a break. I know a year is too long but it might help the two of you cherish the time you have together in a way that bored, old couples don't even consider. Because eventually you will be a bored old couple. Also: Skype. And: get him to give you something major, huge, and painful. Put your foot down. He has to give you something if you give him this, otherwise you'll be tormented by resentment. This will erode your love. You can't be the only giver. Even though it may feel loving to be the main giver, eventually you will start to hate him, in ten minutes or ten years, so you can't do this. Got it? It can be money to help with childcare when he's away, all his extra money (because you don't want to be raising the babies all alone), or a promise to quit the Army by the birth of child two, or to stay home a year with the babies himself in the future. He wants a good family life too, right? He's going to have to work for it at some point, to give something up, even the Army. In five years, six--is there any amount of time that seems reasonable to him? (Don't wait for the babies to look and him and cry, hoping that that will do it. Because if it doesn't, you'll be extremely angry). Get him to make a plan now.

If he really won't give up the Army, ever ever, figure out if there's anything else that will satisfy you. (Also, please remind him that no one is going to love him forever if he always calls the shots unilaterally--no one loves a tyrant. Except his dog). Maybe you could have a non-monogamy clause for you, just you. You get to have a boyfriend on the side and he doesn't get to, ha ha ha. A diamond ring every year. Or, my favorite, you let him be in the Army if he says yes to you about everything else. Honey, want to take a walk? Yes. Want to change the baby's diapers? Yes. Want to go to the Katy Perry concert? Yes. Oh, we forgot milk. Will you go back to the store for it? Yes, yes, yes.

Yo Wag. I have confused feelings about the closing of Borders. On one hand, the Borders across the street from me sucks so bad that I don't care if it closes, as I wasn't buying stuffed animals and flowered journals and James Patterson books anyway. On the other hand, I'm worried that this means that people no longer read. Maybe there will now be more room for independent bookstores, the kind where you ask the clerk what to read and she hands you a really great book you've never heard of before. A silly dream? Perhaps Wag, perhaps.

Pickles, Pickles, Pickles. I still find the internet distracting, shiny, amazing, learned, and almost utterly irresistible as a method of procrastination. Therefore I still use child-control (otherwise known as porn-blocking) software to limit my internet use. Actually, the whole deal is that I have one computer I write with--without internet, with email--and another old laptop that I use to connect to the internet. This is pathetic but necessary.

How I use the internet has changed over the years. Mostly I look up crucial information such as the names of character actors I've forgotten and what breeds of rabbits are the most personable (the Flemish bunny is very docile & nice but so huge that it shits like a linebacker) and what cave paintings are the prettiest and which kind of ironing board cover is the best. I now can't imagine life without access to this kind of information, and in my fantasies of going back in time/repeating the most fucked-up parts of my life, I always want to take Google with me. I'm less likely to read blogs compulsively or lurk on social networking sites, though I do do both things and I'm especially amazed and happy to see pictures posted by my friends, acquaintances, and people who like to dress up as sexy clowns and have sex (klowns).

Also, if you're a writer, the internet is amazing for research. You can find out how to do all sorts of things--even illegal ones--with just a few clicks. Though I've never been able to find the precise recipe for the quickie method of making crystal meth out of cold medicine in the backseat of a car--oh wait. I just Googled it--nope, still didn't find it.

Just Miss Lonelyhearts. He died at 37 so he didn't really write much.

Hi littleshirly. I bet the roller derby girls would be impressed if you hurled in practice. In fact, I bet they'd try to get you to do it again for a match. Yeah, I probably said sugar is evil. It is very sad, I know, because it's so good, but I try not to eat very much of it. This all started a few years ago when I began to read books about food and diet (because my stomach hurt--it actually turned out to be a manifestation of my back pain probs., but we'll talk about that later, in our rocking chairs). I became a big fan of the science writer Gary Taubes, who wrote a thick book about the history of dietary science and recently a thinner one, explaining how we all came to think that the fat in our diet gives us heart attacks, diabetes, and makes us gain weight, when the best evidence seems to indicate that it's actually sugar and unrefined carbs that do these things (by raising our blood sugar and releasing a shitload of insulin).

Long story short, we evolved as hunter/gatherers (agriculture was only taken up in earnest about 10,000 years ago). Therefore our bodies are adapted for hunter-gatherish kinds of food, like bugs, bone marrow, decaying bison meat, and starfish. Yum.

No way, I love the ellipsis too! I've only recently come to love it, however, after reading style guides over and over (I do not recommend this. After a while, you'll be writing dry, crisp, style-guide sentences and hating yourself for it). I love the semicolon too and use it way too much; someone once told me it was pretentious, which only encouraged me. I would have to say that Day of the Locust is my favorite novel of Hollywood also, as well as one of the novels I've probably read the most times. I might add some Raymond Chandler though I'm not sure if that really counts.

I would be happy to make this more blog-like, without the narcissism/tediousness, with more chance for responses to my answers, hostility and love, tipsy typing, etc....I would, but I'm too lazy, but wait, I have a web friend who liked martinis, maybe he can help me. You know Shittin' & Fuckin', I'm not sure what my original intentions for this forum were. I only knew that as far as authors and authorship, I hated readings, hated going to readings, but loved Q and A's and wished for more of that. This forum has far surpassed my expectations. It's fun, it's strange, it has it's own momentum. The questions are so smart and funny! You guys are doing a great job. Thanks.