Precious Little Thing

I'm suffering from a pretty intense country music addiction this week. I normally don't consider myself much of a country music fan. I mean, I like some of it a lot, but I like it very selectively. But we've been listening to it a lot at work [as a side note, one of my jobs this week was drinking a six pack of glass bottled Coca Cola] and all of a sudden I can't get enough Dolly Parton or Johnny Cash or Alison Krauss. I also was listening to my mp3 player again recently since I had a three week period where the speakers weren't working in my car--and yes, I know it's illegal to listen to headphones while driving but YOU do an hour-plus commute twice a day and tell me how you like it with no music/talk at all whatsoever--and I remembered how much I like Carrie Rodriguez. Incidentally, I discovered recently that she and my cousin were high school classmates, which is pretty cool. At any rate, I suddenly can't get enough country. I've especially been diggin' Dolly Parton. I just listened to "Little Sparrow" about twelve times on repeat, but only after exhausting my appetite for "Jolene". And no, I'm not exaggerating.
So it turns out I do like country music. I think I've figured out my deal with country, though: I LOVE the banjo. Love it, love it, love it. I've always liked bluegrass music and thus Celtic music (the former basically coming out of the latter, I think, not that I know much about musicology) and I think the deal is that I really love the banjo or other banjo-ish instruments. And I also like the fiddle. So most pop country today just doesn't do it for me at all, but I've suddenly developed this insatiable appetite for the old school stuff. My friend Sunny who grew up in a big country music family has informed me that I am in fact not a country fan, but a country western fan. To which I say, "Okay, sure, let's listen to Folsom Prison Blues again!"
My brother is going to be proud. He's a big country guy and is always trying to convince me that I like it, so I'll have to admit that he's at least partially right. Penn is going to be pretty disappointed in me, though, since he's Mr. Hard Rock and I'm fairly certain one of the main reasons he's dating me is because of the Tool sticker on the back of my car. Haha. But I figure if he's going to play System of a Down, which makes me physically cringe, then I'm allowed to force him to share in my newfound appreciation of Dolly.

Speaking of that guy, he comes home tomorrow. Yay! It has been four weeks exactly since we've seen each other, so I'm driving to his place tomorrow night after I get out of work. He'll be jetlagged and I'm pretty sure I'll be exhausted from working a ten-hour day and then doing the drive, but I don't really care. I offered to wait and not drive up until Monday evening since I'm off work all day on Monday and don't have to come in again until late in the morning on Tuesday, but when I suggested that as an alternative he just said, "Are you kidding?! I want to see you as soon as I get home!" which is exactly what I hoped he would say. We've talked on the phone a couple of times a week while he's been gone and we've stayed in touch via e-mail, but I'm ready for us to be in the same country again. There's a lot more I want to know about Penn, and it's much easier to get to know each other when you're in the same time zone.

One last thing that has nothing to do with anything: there is a new ad campaign that is driving me crazy. I first noticed the billboard a few blocks away from my apartment a couple of months ago. It has a couple on it and she's in a wedding dress and he's in a tux and under the picture it says, "Married People Earn More Money." The first time I saw it I was like, "What the hell?!" It bugs me every time I pass it, but since it's the opposite direction from my usual commute I don't have to see it very often. But this weekend I'm dogsitting for my friend in City A and when I was getting off the metro last night near her house I saw the same stupid ad on the side of a bus stop. (Although I should point out that the version near my apartment features a black couple and the version here near my friend's house features a white couple. I doubt that this is a coincidence since my neighborhood is probably 65-70% African American and she lives in a much more yuppie, predominantly white part of the city. This division annoys me too, but it's tangential to my actual point...hence the parentheses) Here is my problem with the ad: REALLY? Do married people actually earn more money? I'd love to see the study that proves that. I can't think of a single logical distinct connection between earning power and matrimonial status. I can see how being married might cause you to have more money in the long run. For one thing, while the old adage that two can live as cheaply as one is not entirely true, it's somewhat true. I mean, my apartment could be a two-person apartment and if I shared the rent with a husband, sure, I'd have more money. I don't know much about tax laws, but isn't it true that married people get more tax breaks than single people? I could be pulling that fact out of my ass, but if I'm not, then that's maybe a factor. And obviously being a single parent is a lot more of a financial strain than being a married one. All of these are reasons why I think it's probably true that married couples have more money. But do they earn more money? I highly doubt that. Since when do you pay someone a higher rate just because they're married? It's not as catchy, but the stupid billboards probably need to say something like "Over the Course of Their Lifetimes, Married People Will Have More Money Than Single People Because of the Following Factors..."
Mainly I hate the stupid billboards for pushing a heteronormative marriage, though. Grrrr. And for setting it up as something that solves all of your financial problems. What a great reason to get married! To earn more money! The whole thing is just bashing the sanctity of marriage. Get married because you love the person and because they're your best friend and because you can't imagine growing old without them. Don't get married because it's the financially practical thing to do. How sad is that?! I'm not an idealist about many things, and I guess I'm not even really an idealist about marriage, but I would like to think that there are good, right reasons for getting married. And earning more money is NOT one of them. Not in my book.