Train the Band Presents: A United States of America Joint: Ford The River or Caulk the Wagon? : Pregnancy in Austin! And Possible Prostitution!

Dear Jeremiah,

Tis a long day in the wagon, after leaving yee ol’ Austin! T’was a wild ride in the city! I traded my only shoes for a wedge of lemon! T’will cure my scurvy! I am contemplating selling my hair for squirrel meat and my body for clean water. It will be the first time I laid with a man since my wedding night. Oh to be thirteen again....

Miss Heather is pregnant! (As you might recall she was vomiting a lot and altering her petticoats) All of us are very excited, except her brother Mr. Seth, who has been various sheets of white since the announcement. He's been keeping his distance from Miss Heather. They even stopped playing their daily game of "who can hug each other the fullest" which they explained to me is another game they learned as kids, just like "bottom tag" (see my last letter). I guess Mr. Seth has a right to be quite nervous, what, with being an uncle for the first time...

We ran into Deenah in the marketplace! It turns out Burt Lovejoy aka Leatherface, traded her for a Brisket Taco. We have decided to take her back…her dysentery is gone, and she is using a wheel for her lost leg. So she must be good for something!

We’ve been occupying ourselves in the wagon with many fun games!

Songs of Our First Crushes:

These are the songs we associate with the first requited or unrequited loves:

Heather Robb:

Can’t Let Go by Mariah Carey, Summer after 5^th grade

“I was in love with my camp counselor Brian. IN. LOVE. He had the most beautiful brown eyes they looked like cows eyes. COWS. EYES. He played football with me and liked that I was into football. Didn’t have the nerve to tell him how I felt, as I left camp that summer I cried listening (on my walkman) to the lyric: “even though I try, I can’t let go, something in your eyes captured my soul.”

Seth Kirschner:

Wind Beneath my Wings by Bette Midler: 6^th grade

“She was a quadruplet. It was our song. She made it our song.”

Deenah Shutzer

Save Tonight by Eagle Eye Cherry 8^th grade

“He used to put it on his away message on AIM. It was unspoken but it was totally for me.”

Darcy Fowler

Satellite by DMB, 7^th grade

"He was two years older, he loved another, a cool high school girl, I sat with Liz Cashman and Anna Hughes weeping to that song"

Movies That Make Us Weep:

(in no particular order)

1) Billy Elliot

2) Terms of Endearment (so manipulative)

3) Kramer Vs. Kramer

4) My Girl

5) Finding Nemo

6) Tsotsi

7) Toy Story 3

8) Turner and Hooch

9) Lives of Others

10) Great Little Toaster

11) The Pianist

12) Hachi: A Dogs Tale

13) The Turning Point

14) Up (The beginning)

15) Thelma And Louise

16) Beauty and the Beast

17) Lion King

18) The Contender

19) Swing Kids

20) Simon Birch

21) Homeward Bound

22) Braveheart

23) West Side Story

24) Ordinary People

25) All Dogs Go to Heaven

26) League of Their Own

27) Singing in the Rain (from the beauty of it)

28) An Affair to Remember

29) Life is Beautiful

30) Muppet Christmas Carol

31) Hook

32) When Harry Met Sally

33) Taps

34) Marley and Me

35) Mr. Holland’s Opus

36) Legends of the Fall (Does NOT hold up)

Morning in Austin!! We stayed with the most amazing people ever, our friends Adam and Margaret, a brilliant writer and incredible arts therapist respectively!!

Miss Margaret made dutch pancakes! They were so good it was crazy. Really. I'm thinking about them now and I wish I could eat them all over again. It's like if you took love, put it to the tenth power, made it into a necklace, and gave it to Aphrodite for Valentine's day and then she went on a DATE and CONSUMMATED.