Encore

After a weeklong hiatus, Miss Bright Eyes returns for a special two-and-a-half-hour presentation of "The Late, Late, Late, Late, Late Show with Laurel: Deep Thoughts at 3 a.m. " Laurel and I passed the time productively, having an incisive discussion about the vagaries of foreign film. OK, so actually I held her in bed and rubbed her back while she gazed at the wall. Then I walked her around the living room. But we both got a lot out of it and came to some deeply profound realizations. (Everything is deeply profound at this hour of the morning).

Laurel: If you stare at a 1-foot-square patch of orange peel long enough, you'll see all kinds of funky shapes in there. I swear I can see Barney and that weird birthmark on Michail Gorbachev's head. I think it looks kind of like Central America. Ooh, hey, I've got an itch. Can you get that for me? Left, left, left, OK, right, right, now up, up, yeah, right there.

me: The world's population should be sorted according to several very important dichotomies. Among them: cat/dog, chocolate/vanilla, Beatles/Elvis, baker/cook, coffee/tea, to be/not to be, rather too hot/too cold, passenger/driver... (More on this last category later.)

Laurel: String theory really is a fascinating way to model the formation of the universe. Burp. Excuse me.

me: I like string cheese. But I wonder how they ... stringify it. You're excused.