LITTLE PEOPLE SHOWED up on film yesterday deep in the heart of the Amazon jungle. When I say 'little', I mean, of course, those civilization-impaired humans, not midgets. (Is 'midgets' still P.C.? For that matter, was 'midgets' ever P.C.? A people defined by their penchant for circus work, exotica porn production, and pointing at jaundiced brick paving deserve a name that strikes fear into the hearts of men, just to make up for it. I'm thinking 'Piledrivers'. 'Shitkickers'. 'Devilbunnies'. But I digress).

The existence of this tribe utterly fascinates me. I've spent more time than I care to admit squinting at the fuzzy pictures of men painted with red clay pointing their tiny bows at the devil machine in the sky, while a lone female figure painted black dances crazy-dance behind them. What are they doing? Why are they painted red and black? Why is the lone woman out there? Is she a priestess dancing herself into a frenzy to bring the spirits of arrow accuracy down upon the red men? Where is everyone else? Is this just a scouting mission of three people?

You can imagine that from the moment that helicopter appeared (and rapidly disappeared) onwards, that has been the sole topic of conversation in the Amazonian huts.
"I think it was a sign from God!"
"The Gods are pleased! They did not kill us!"
"No, the Gods are angry! They left us here in the mud!"
"Larry, you think everything is a sign from God."
"Nuh-uh!"
"Yuh-huh! Just last week you said that when you woke up with bird poop on your face, it was a sign from God!"
"Well, it was!
"Idiot, it built a nest above your bed!"
[Silence]
"I hate you, Steve."

The Amazon really is trackless. Imagine: this isn't the only tribe of civilization-less people out there, it's, like, one of several that we know about! And scientists predict there might be many, many more. Think of all the other things that could be lost in the rainforest besides tribes of little people. Car keys. Mateless socks. A-Ha.

Kind of makes you think about humanity, doesn't it? Man's inhumanity to man, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, marking distinctions is the first step towards destruction, that sort of thing? What must it be like to be those painted people? How must it feel to see that big ol' copter, and what could we see that would be to us as the copter is to them?

Discuss.

MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND became a full-frontal vacation with the addition of a day off on Friday. Jason's friend Billy came into town, and- in addition to eating ourselves senseless- we saw as much of Memphis as it is possible to see and still sleep nights.

For me, the best part was finding out that Earnestine & Hazel's has Sunday night jazz (during which the entire audience- made up of thirty people carrying horns- got up, moved by an internal clock, and just started to play in front of the house band. Then they sat down. Then they drank. Then they went up again, sometimes cutting out the middle man by standing at their tables and playing right there). We were the only people there not fondling a brass instrument, and the only people there who didn't know everyone else. It was great!

Sushi, pulled pork at the Barbeque Shop (twice), losing money on roulette at the casinos, breakfast with a senator down on the river, tours of Memphis architecture, Redbirds baseball game: it was all quite exhausting.

We finally made it to the pool for an afternoon of unwinding on Sunday, only to find that Sparky (the mechanical pool cleaner) had gotten hung up during the weekend of thunderstorms. An hour later, after skiffing the pool with the long net (and cursing the lazy boyfriend who was sitting in the air conditioning, drinking a beer, and chatting happily with friends as I cleaned and sweated), relaxation kicked in.

After bidding Billy a fond farewell on Monday afternoon- not before stuffing ourselves with BBQ once again- Dad called and required a car battery jump start from, of all places, the parking lot of Taco Bell. It took three minutes for Jason to start his car and twelve to harangue Dad about not eating fast food (and Taco Bell! The lowest of the low!). He was properly ashamed of being caught in such a compromising position and attempted to throw us off the scent by serving us wine and cheese on the porch during a real summer thunderstorm.

Even with all the craziness, Jason and I were able to sneak in lots of together time (which was great, and well overdue) and even a couple of movies. The house got cleaned, the laundry got done, the garden got tended. The only thing that we didn't do was go to the Farmer's Market on Saturday morning, and I plan to rectify that this weekend. Go, veggies!

I'D LIKE TO riff on the subject of stubbornness this morning, if you'll bear with me while I indulge myself. Most people, I find, describe themselves of stubborn. I think that's an American thing, "Oh, I'm so stubborn, tee hee! Isn't that awful?" with the kind of tongue-in-cheek pseudo-shame that typifies those things of which we are most proud. What is it that makes us pride ourselves on being intractable?

I'm not the most stubborn person I know; that honor belongs to a good friend of mine to whom I haven't spoken in ages after a particularly nasty fight. "I'll never speak to you again!" he said, and by golly, he hasn't. I'm only a pathetic stubborn compared to this; I send notes of apology and mea culpa with depressing regularity which are met with awesome silence. Compared to this, I'm an amateur.

My own version of stubborn is more a knee-jerk reaction. Jason will ask me something- anything- and I'll immediately refuse, then start shouting, then lapse into angry silence. It doesn't matter what it is. It's so stupid, so childish, so perfectly the way to start an argument with no resolution. There's no way to end it except owning up to my own idiocy and apologizing (not an attractive option). Man, it damn near kills me to apologize. It takes the most profound feeling of love to do it.

Studies keep showing us that the thing that keeps marriages and friendships together for the long haul isn't our spontaneous attraction- however phenomenal that may be- our shared interests, or even the things we do together. Rather, it's this willingness to set aside our too-human stubbornness for a few moments every day, to apologize and unbend. Just the willingness to stop and say, "Hey, you know what? I don't have all the answers, and I can be a stupid jerk. I'm sorry I wasn't listening to you; try again, and I'll really try, too."

Now if I could just do it.

REASON #3,428 THAT Alec Baldwin is the single finest celebrity on the face of the planet: He recently went on '60 Minutes' and described Kim Basinger's lawyer, Judy Bogen, as "a 300 pound homunculus with a face like a clinched fist". He then immediately recanted, saying that description was "too kind".

Who says 'homunculous' on prime-time television? Alec Baldwin, that's who!

ONCE UPON A time, there lived a young green troll. He made his home under a stone bridge which he had caulked carefully in order to make it draft-proof. In the autumn he collected provisions for the coming winter- sheep's eyeballs, goat ears, cow intestines and the like- and secreted them away in the well-organized pantry he had carefully carved into an abutment of the bridge. He liked nothing better than to claw his way to the top of the bridge during a winter snowstorm and hunch down on the balustrade, snow blowing in his eyes, and crack open a decayed pigeon from his stores for teatime.

Leonard- for that was his name- loved the quiet peace of these times. That wasn't to say he didn't enjoy leaping out at a hapless traveler, claws akimbo and fangs bared, to feast on their skin, but all that joggling around sometimes upset his stomach. He had always had a delicate constitution. His mother had warned him time and again to avoid too much physical activity during and after meals.

One particular Tuesday morning, Leonard woke up to a blinding snowstorm. He watched the swirling whiteness from his bedroom girder for a while, then yawned and swung down onto his wide living room truss. The little troll lit a fire in the grate, scratched his bottom with one claw and, yawning, put the kettle on. He rummaged for a moment in his live mouse box, picked out a plump wriggling specimen, and impaled it neatly on a sharp skewer. The mouse twitched a moment longer, then went still. Leonard turned to place his breakfast mouse in the glowing embers of the fire, but as he did so caught the faintest glimpse of grey beyond the sheeting curtain of white.

Leonard stared.

Nothing. The white snow puffed and played around the bridge. He shook his head, jowls jiggling a bit and drips of slime falling to the floor, and placed the mouse in the fire. He mounded the embers carefully over the skewer, turning once or twice to look over his shoulder. The silent snowstorm looked back.

The whistling kettle startled Leonard out of his reverie.

THIS IS TOO good to be true. This is so good, it must be fattening. It's so good, you're going to puke on yourself.

Barbara Walters had an affair with a U.S. Senator.

Barbara Walters! U.S. Senator!! Ahh, I'm in heaven!!

From now on, Babs' new nickname is 'Jack Donaghy'. For those of you who are foolish/busy enough not to watch '30 Rock', Jack is the fictional uber-conservative head of NBC who dallies in an illicit relationship with an uber-liberal Democratic senator from Illinois.

Democrat journalist Barbara Walters was screwing around with a married, Republican, black senator from Massachusetts!!!! Are you dying? I'm dying!!! He's not even dead, or anything like it. He's divorced and remarried and living in obscurity somewhere in Boca. Or rather... WAS living in obscurity in until Jack's book came out yesterday! Welcome back to the spotlight, Edward Brooke!

You know what they say... once you go Republican, you never go back.

Or something like that!

THIS MORNING, JASON asked that I write about Barack Obama and the Wright Controversy (sounds like the title of a children's story, doesn't it? 'Barack Obama and the Land of the Teddy Bears'). I was deeply flattered that he would want my point of view, until I realized that in reality he simply doesn't have the patience to read CNN.com and wanted the Cliffs Notes version of the controversy. When I said this, he enthusiastically agreed that this was indeed the case.

Bastard.

But I'm a sucker for guys who runs on the treadmill in boxer shorts, so to keep the peace, encourage him to keep doing that, and hopefully secure a free dinner, here's the haps:

Wright was Barack-o's church pastor for many years. Wright was a bit of a father figure to Barack since B's own dad was pretty much out of the picture. Wright was Barack's pastor up until about a year ago when B.O. went heavy on the campaign trail. Lately, the Wright Reverend's sermons got on YouTube. He said some things that could be either him being (1) a shoot-from-the-hip straight-talker or (2) totally racist (just as an aside, that makes him the black identical twin of Donald Rumsfeld). Among his possible assertions were that the U.S. brought the Twin Towers attacks upon themselves and that Hilary Clinton had an advantage in the election because she's white.

I know, I know. That's just crazy talk!!

Unfortunately, he then went to the National Press Club this past week and said those things all over again, then suggested- among other things- that the government had manufactured and released AIDS as a way to control and kill the black population, and that the US government is a terrorist organization. Oh, and by the by, he's still a super-duper good friend of Barack and B.O. listens to everything he says; the two of them are like twinned souls.

Because it's really, really easy to scare the crackers by saying that stupidity, brutality, and utter lack of political skill are inherent in black people and that Barack personally will rape your wife while stealing your silver if elected, Republicans are taking that ball and running with it as fast and far and hard as they can. Vote for Johnny Mac, because otherwise THEY'll be in your home, up to their elbows in government-grade AIDS!

I don't know about you, but I'm beginning to suspect that the government manufactured and released Reverend Wright as a way to control and kill the black candidate. Poor Barack.