I’ve had sewage on my mind since watching the Cohen Brothers True Grit. Early in the movie, Matty Ross’s search for Rooster Cogburn leads her to an outhouse. When she knocks on the door, we hear Jeff Bridges’ Rooster growl from inside: “The jakes is occupied.” She knocks again, and he says again, with even more gravel, “I said the jakes is occupied.”

“The jakes” is a term I remember from my Shakespeare. And here it is, in a Hollywood movie. It is just the beginning of the linguistic weirdness of True Grit. (The lingo they use. And where’d the contractions go?) For me, it is love at first shite.

In: Assonance
Out: Alliteration

In: Burgundy
Out: Bourgogne

In: Calico
Out: Coal tar

Dear Posh Guys:

I had no idea. I’m not dumb, or uneducated. I’m just American. We shy away from words like “master.” We eat a lot of desserts, but call only one of them pudding. We like tea, but mostly we drink coffee, no variety of which is named after our country, members of our peerage, or our former colonies.

1. Fall in love. It should be noted that there are different versions of love, most of which include one person parasitically sucking off the other, stronger person, but this still can be used to the writer’s benefit. What you do is you label anything love that you can’t figure out, or when a person acts inconsistent—one day happy, one day angry (like father)—and you sleep with that person and you listen to their hopes and dreams and they never ask you about yours and you don’t care because deep inside you know this isn’t the real thing but the sex parts feel good and you really really really like their nose, but inside you know it won’t last.

Day 1: My Brother is Pelting Me with Hershey’s Kisses

Each festive chocolate pulled from the candy dish is swung over the living room planter en route for my head, trunk, or at least a limb. With the older sibling advantage, his aim is precise. For years he has practiced his technique, has mastered the maneuver of recon, sweeping up each fallen missile to prevent a return attack. One eye on the target, one eye scanning the carpet. His arms and legs, a unified machine with one purpose: to annoy.