Thank you all very much for participating in my highly unscientific study of mental functioning. I also asked people in the physical world, and here are my results:

All musicians can readily imagine pieces of music being done in different styles and by different instruments. Some non-musicians can, too. But some non-musicians cannot. Whether this is a lack of experience and practice (as Sighkey suggests, and the widespread qualms about ragtime support the hypothesis), or whether people who can't imagine music just don't go on to become musicians (as Knitsteel's comment that she doesn't try to imagine things like that suggests) -- well, that question would require further study, and maybe there is a government grant there.

It may be that people who are not good with visualization of multiple dimensions ought not to attempt to learn clothing construction, but I am going to do so anyway.

I've been trying to figure out how to meet this 2007 goal. My first thought was to take a class, but the only one I have found is a Beginning Sewing class. I had rejected that, since I do some kinds of sewing quite well, but Grumperina took one and was very enthusiastic about it, so I am reconsidering the possibility.

My next thought was to work through a sewing book. The predictable difficulty there is that books on sewing are designed for people who do not have difficulty moving from two dimensions to three. So far, I continue to use my books on sewing as I use the instructions on the sewing pattern: I read the needed section, stare at it a bit, pick up the pieces of fabric and stare at them at bit, pin or baste or sew something and leave it alone for a bit to settle, then come back to it and stare some more, in hopes that I will notice any errors before I have done something irremediable. If at that point I see nothing wrong, I move on to the next step.

This method is for new tasks, of course. If I have done something before, or perhaps the eighteen times it took me to get it right, then I can just go ahead and do it again.

So the third possibility that has occurred to me for reaching my goal is simply to soldier on and do a whole lot of sewing. To this end, I am intending to finish one sewn thing a week.

This is a reach-exceeds-the-grasp goal, in that I don't necessarily plan to reach it consistently. But I figure that, if I aim at sewing one thing every week, I will probably sew many more things than if I intend to sew one a month, which is what I did last year.

My finished sewn object for the first week of January was the gray felted sweater bag I showed you. Lostarts suggested that I could find artificial versions of the bone buttons I was thinking of at chain craft stores, and she was quite right.

For this week, we will see. I have three current sewing WIPs, and I have declared today a PSD, so whichever one of them I complete will be the one for this week.

I am beginning the day with zippers, always a bit challenging for those of us who have difficulty with the old third dimension, but I believe in doing the hard stuff first and getting it out of the way.

Another thing I learned from Lostarts is about xanga tags. You all probably know about tags. I had seen the announcement, but had ignored it, as I do most xanga announcements. But then I saw the pretty little cloud of words on Lostarts's xanga. This allows the reader to check back and see everything she has said about naked men, knitting, and psychotic landlords she has known, without searching back through her archives.

I thought about putting proper tags on my posts about knitting, so that readers who just came here for the knitting could readily find them, but I find upon looking back that I tend to discuss my knitting only after I have rabbitted on about the Crimean War or gingerbread or something, so it wouldn't help. I did, however, corral my socks posts, since those were actually intended to be helpful to people knitting socks, so you could click on that if you are having difficulty with the particular dimensionality issues inherent in sock-making. And I tagged -- or began tagging -- some of my own long-term projects so that I could look back on my notes on the subject. I do not yet have a cloud of words, just a line, but I am working up to it.

On to the zippers!

Sometimes I randomly read around the blogs while I have my second cup of tea, and then, later, cannot remember where I read the interesting thing I want to tell you about. This is one of those times. Sorry.

Anyway, at one of the sewing blogs, I read about a fellow who could imagine what any tune would sound like on any instrument or in any style. The blogger felt that this was kind of sad, because then there would be no surprises when, perhaps, he heard "Under the Boardwalk" performed by a Big Band and a barbershop quartet or something.

I was very surprised by this.

When I do my little Advent calendar of music and suggest that you listen to a midi file and then play it on your jazz violin, I have always assumed that you could, upon hearing the electronic plunking of the melody, readily imagine it with whatever style or instrument you prefer. Or several possibilities, of which you could then choose one. In fact, I always figure that you -- if perchance you don't know enough doo-wop girls to gather up a quartet on the spur of the moment -- can just hear it in your mind in that way and enjoy it without having to make new friends in the doo-wop community. Just as I assume that you could imagine a sweater made in a different color from the one in the pattern picture.

Am I wrong, or is the blogger in question the unusual one?

Understand that I am not criticizing her for this mental handicap. I bet she doesn't have to sew classic trouser pockets in three times because she can't quite visualize how pieces of fabric go to become a three-dimensional garment. But I figure that I am the unusual one in the whole matter of dimensionality in sewing, and that she is the unusual one in the matter of mental arrangement of music.

If you are willing to be part of this unscientific sampling, please tell me your own experience. Can you imagine "The ABC Song" played on a tuba? In ragtime? Or any other concatenation, really. I just wanted to specify something you probably haven't actually heard in real life.

New Year's goals and resolutions are still popping up on blogs and in conversations. Part of that is because I am seeing people I haven't seen since 2006, part of it is that the kids have just gone back to school (mine looking as though a guillotine awaited them in French class) and that is the real beginning of the new year, and part of it is that these are long-term goals and we can still be talking about them all year.

But part of it is also that sense that we keep making  these resolutions or developing these goals, and often don't meet them. So there are conversations that are about whether there is any point in continuing to try to quit smoking, get our finances in order, lose weight, improve our relationships, be faithful with study and prayer -- and so on and so on, when we have to remake the same resolutions every year. No wonder people are coming up with goals like "Don't buy any unneeded yarn in 2007."

Actually, I accomplish a lot of my goals. But some goals are not the kind you can accomplish and then you are through. When Blessing and Partygirl and That Man and I have discussed our firm intentions to get back to our health regimes -- and subsequent failure to do so - - we are not talking about two weeks on South Beach and then we can get back to our daily lives. We have to get up every morning and not eat bacon and eggs and biscuits and gravy (or croissants with jam and cafe Toro; take your pick). For the rest of our lives. We have to go to the gym or run in the park or do that Pilates class every day. For the rest of our lives. That Man, who successfully quit smoking a couple of years back, still has to get up every day and decide not to have a cigarette.

I was thinking about that this morning at the gym. There are a couple of middle-aged women there who have been going for a year now. The one with the large, jiggly bottom? She still has it. The one with the bottom that slopes down toward her knees? She still has it.

I was behind them yesterday on the treadmill for 30 minutes. I will not describe my bottom for you, in order to preserve my anonymity.

The point is, at least for those of us in middle age, we are in for the long haul. We are not doing a six-week program to look good in our bikinis for spring break. We have to take care of our bodies all the time, however bored we get with it, and even though we can be quite certain that at the end of all this effort we will simply be more wrinkled. In fact, at the end of it, we will be dead.

It is the same with those goals to get organized. My pantry and craft cupboard and linen cupboard have been beautifully organized spaces at various points in the year, but now I have to get them organized all over again. And even if Blessing and I both get our houses all cleaned up over the weekend as we plan to, we will have to do it again next week. (Not Partygirl; her children are grown.)

It reminds me of another remark from the conversation about prayer I was involved in the other night. You don't have to enjoy praying, one said, and you don't have to see results, but you do have to keep doing it. Every single day.

So, while I have some goals that are measurable and realistic, as goals are supposed to be, and which I intend to check off with satisfaction, I also have some that are just part of the daily slog. The New Year is a good time to recommit to things that we have let slide, but essentially it is just a matter of doing it -- or trying to do it -- every single day. Whether we enjoy it or not. Whether we see results or not. Because it is the right thing to do.

I have been feeling a little bit under the weather for about a week. I have felt as though I was coming down with something -- sore throat, headache, sniffling -- but since I haven't gotten around to coming down with anything yet, I guess I'm not. I actually would like to go ahead and get sick so I can get better.

In the meantime, my to-do list keeps getting longer because I am lacking the energy to get things crossed off. The boys go back to school today, so we will all be on a more normal schedule and perhaps that will help.

At the very least, I hope, it will help with the housekeeping. My house looks like there have been teenage boys on vacation there for weeks.

Yesterday I went to the library to finish the fact-checking assignment that has been hanging over me. Passing through the real historic district, I thought I would give you some pictures from it, since I showed you pictures from the faux-historic district.

There are some beautiful houses here, and some with interesting histories.

When the big trees have leaves and the flowers are blooming, these are gracious roads, and people often pass the time of day on the sidewalks while walking their dogs or pushing their strollers.

Our town was first settled in the 1820s, and the 1850s were a time of prosperity and hopefulness.

(If you are thinking that I am ignoring the people who lived here before, I am really not. This was part of the Osage hunting grounds, but they didn't live here. A few Cherokee arrived in the 1790s, but the Osage were so unhappy about that that the spell from then till the 1820s could not be described as "settled" by any stretch of the imagination.)

Then there was that pesky war, and much of the town was burnt and many of the people ended up in refugee camps. But afterwards, there was rebuilding, including the university which was and largely still is the center of life here, and the turn of the century was a good time for our town.

So we have some fine Victorian and Edwardian buildings.

Still, it is impossible not to notice how much less tidy and picturesque the real historic district is than the one that was set up like a block village a few years ago.

I also found it a bit inhibiting to take pictures here, because I know more people who live here. It is one thing to go into a street where you are a stranger and snap away like a tourist, and another to chance a conversation beginning "So why were you taking pictures of my house the other day?" in the butcher's.

I would have to continue conversations like that by saying, "Do you know what a blog is?" and so often the answer is a puzzled frown and "I've heard that word..."

I haven't decided whether I ought to rest more in order to stave off whatever it is I am coming down with, or ignore it and work more diligently on my to-do list, but at least the fact-checking is done.

Oh! I can't leave without sharing with you the remarkable metaphor I heard last night. We are like ice cream in Baked Alaska, the woman said, and prayer is the meringue that insulates us against the oven of suffering.

I bet you've never heard that one before.

 Our neighbor set a big Sony TV out on the curb.

Around here, the trash collectors will not pick up large things. If you have anything that won't fit into your trash bin, then it is customary to set it out on the curb right after the trash men have been by. This gives you a week during which someone might come and pick the thing up. Then, if they don't, the trash men will leave you a stern note with the number to call to arrange pick up of your TV or whatever, at an extra charge to you.

So I said we should rescue the neighbor's TV. I would never for an instant consider buying a big Sony TV. However, I was aware that my husband would LOVE to have a truly big TV, and that my boys sincerely believe that Sony would be better than whatever it is that we have already.

My husband wanted to ask the neighbors first. I guess he was imagining that they might have the habit of airing out their TV for the New Year, or perhaps be showing off their new electronica before installing it.

My sons said it would be too embarrassing to pick something up from the curb. I pointed to the computer table and the mini-trampoline, both of which I cheerfully took from the curb and which they just as cheerfully use.

However, I am not the one who watches TV around here, and I am certainly not the one who would like a really big TV, and I saw no reason to fetch it if the guys weren't interested. It sat out on the curb for a few days while we discussed these points.

My husband decided that we should get it under cover of darkness.

So, with lots of complaining and protesting, the boys helped him do so. They put it in the middle of the living room floor.

I pointed out the oddity of its placement yesterday before I went to work. I came home at lunchtime and found #2 son playing video games -- in the middle of the living room floor, where the TV still was. I mildly mentioned that the carpet might not be the best spot for a ginormous TV.

It was still there when I came home from work. We banded together to make a turkey dinner, and when I had cleaned it up and talked with my daughters a bit, I headed back to my bedroom to read for a while before sleeping.

The giant TV was on top of my great-aunt's dresser. There were assorted guys sitting on the bed, watching "Terminator III."

I ask you, does this look like a place for reading novels before a night of repose, or like a place for watching Terminator movies?

I guess it will now serve for both.

   The sweater bag is complete.

I took it all around the house attempting to find a place with enough light that I could show you a clear picture of it.

I have this problem all the time. The solution would be a) to get one strong light somewhere in the house specifically for this purpose, or b) to take pictures in the daylight, for heaven's sake.

It is never light outside when I think of taking these pictures.

However, now that the Christmas tree is gone, we have to decide whether to return the furniture to its previous configuration, or to keep the reading corner. The boys want to keep the reading corner. It was their idea. We have been planning on scoping out the yard sales for a good strong lamp for that corner anyway. Then we could not only read there, but also take pictures.

It occurs to me that it is probably not the strength of the lamp that is in question here, but of the bulb. We have all these low wattage bulbs for energy conservation. If I put a single 100 watt bulb in for a reading light, it would feel like an enormous luxury.

Until that takes place, I offer you these dim pictures, in hopes that you can see roughly what this looks like. I used McCall's pattern 5198 and a motheaten lambswool sweater. I lined it with the microfiber I have been using for my SWAP, added a strip of buckram inside the gusset, and finished it with a button from my button jar.

Now here are the things I don't like about it.

For one thing, it seems awfully big. I took a little pleat in the pattern to make it smaller, and it is still enormous. It looked fine on the pattern envelope.

Possibly the models are both six feet tall, so it is more in proportion to them.

The issue of size is not fixable, unless I take the whole thing apart and start over, so I may see whether I like it better after I've carried it a bit.

The other thing I don't care for is the button, which is of course eminently fixable.

I think that I would like for this one of those buttons that looks like a slice of antler with a couple of holes in it.

The button I used is the closest thing to that that I had in my button box.

It is too small. In fact, it may be that having such a small button contributes to my feeling that the bag itself is too big.

I will be searching for a larger and more suitable button, possibly with an interesting shape like these Chinese ones.

 I am trying to think how I could solder one, or make one from polymer clay, or in some other way create something special and unique in the way of a button. I think the bag itself is rather sporty, so a big plastic one would be okay, but here is the opportunity to do some mad wild thing with a giant button. I am not one to wear giant fancy buttons on clothing, so I may never have this opportunity again.

There are things I like about this purse, though.

It turned out well. I followed youall's advice and did not line the strap, made it thinner the way I wanted it, and quite like it.

The construction was quite successful overall, in fact.

And I made a respectable buttonhole, too.

Now here you absolutely cannot see the buttonhole on the inner flap. But I wish you could.

I had intended this to be a practice buttonhole for the ones I need to make on my jacket. The flap was too thick to go under the presser foot on my sewing machine, so I opted instead for a bound buttonhole, using a scrap of black lining fabric.

It turned out very well.

This is about all I accomplished this weekend.

Oh, I undecorated the house, got another 30 rows done on Pipes's sleeve, and spent some fun time with family and friends. So I guess that counts as accomplishing something.

But I didn't finish the fact-checking, get my house clean, or make the pair of pants I intended to make.

On Mondays, it is hard to decide whether it is more satisfying to have gotten a lot done over the weekend, or to have rested up so you can be glad to go back to work.

On Saturday, it often is much more appealing to rest up.

I am enjoying Terry Jones's Barbarians, which endeavors to present history from the point of view of the folks whom the Romans called "Barbarians." I remember, when we were homeschooling, being surprised at how much more our own culture seemed to owe to the European tribal groups than to the Mediterranean classical civilizations. Looking at their mythology, way of life, governments, position of women, and so forth, I found myself wondering why I had always been taught that we were the cultural descendants of the Greeks and Romans, with whom we had so little in common.

So I am not unreceptive to this equal time approach to European history.

As with any major revision of historical interpretation, though, you sort of feel as though you should be running off to check the footnotes all the time. The comparison of pre-Roman roads and Roman roads seems pretty straightforward, but the claim that the Celts had indoor plumbing made me wonder.

Click here for a review of the TV documentary which apparently preceded the book. The reviewer seems to feel that Barbarians is largely an attack on America, with an undertone of back-to-the-land harking back to European tribal mythology that reminds the reviewer of the Nazi fascination with Teutonic hero tales.

I haven't gotten that far. I'm still in the celebration of Celtic engineering. I'm enjoying the book, though.

We got our house undecorated, the party was fun, and I did some sewing. Much of the sewing was looking at the pieces and thinking how they might fit together. The bag should be finished today, but the trousers may take longer. I am doing the traditional menswear styled version of  McCall's 3740, and there are a lot of counterintuitive bits.

It may be that my major battle with clothing construction will be about following directions accurately. I am accustomed to making decisions about projects as I go along, and treating instructions as a starting point. This allows the craftsperson to make a traditional quilt or sweater which is nonetheless quite special and individual.

"Special" and "individual" are not what I am after in a pair of trousers, though. An intriguingly-shaped fly or exciting new ways with pockets are not what I want at all.

And, speaking of the special and individual results of crafting, do not miss the pattern in this month's issue of Today's Creative Homearts for a matching shrug and bottle holder. This is a crocheted faux-argyle sort of mini poncho with, yes, a matching cozy for a wine bottle.

I am trying to think of an occasion on which a person would find such a thing useful.

The party that I attended last night included wine. I took a salad, but some folks brought bottles. What if they had turned up with their bottles in little crocheted holders that matched their wraps? Would that have been kicky and fun? Were the Celts equal to the Romans in engineering, but less brutal? Will I be able to construct a convincing pair of trousers?

So many deep questions...

It is Epiphany. Traditionally, this is the day to put away all decorations and remove all greenery from the house, so that is what I am doing today.

I will also be finally getting around to the fact-checking, doing errands and housework, and going to a party.

It is a potluck, and I think I will be taking Salade Nicoise.

It is possible, at this time of year, to get to a potluck and find that nearly everyone has followed the classic advice for what to take to a potluck when you are trying to watch what you eat: a salad. So there you are with a table full of salads, and that one person who brought brownies sure feels cheated.

On the other hand, it is also possible to arrive with your handsome green salad and find that there is nothing but saturated fats and simple carbohydrates, and eating a plate of your own green salad makes a person feel conspicuous and deprived of protein.

Salade Nicoise seems like a good compromise. It is a good main dish, but quite healthy. Here is a link to Julia Child's classic recipe. Here is a French recipe that warns you not to put any potatoes in, and isn't any too positive about tuna, either.

To my mind, what you need for Salade Nicoise is a good serious lettuce, lightly steamed green beans, tomatoes and cucumber, tuna and hard-cooked eggs, and chopped olives, preferably several kinds. Then I put some anchovy paste in the dressing, because I am not going to put those nasty-looking little anchovies in the salad and have people peering at them wondering if they are slugs on the lettuce.

For my walk yesterday, I strolled over to a little faux-historic section across the cemetery from my street.

Our Christmas tree was, I think, particularly pretty this year, but our outdoor decorations were kind of lame, so I was glad to have a final  opportunity to admire the decorations over here where people were making a bit more of an effort.

These houses have the grace of old buildings, but they were actually built all in a group just a few years ago. The architect is one of our local boys, the same guy who made our crumbling downtown look beautiful again, and I really admire what he has done.

It is  a little enclave in the middle of my neighborhood, which is mostly ranch houses from the seventies like these.

I live in one of the ranch houses. They are nice and comfortable, and I have no complaints, but no one will ever stop and stare at them and think how lovely they are.

In the faux-historic district, people do that.

You are walking or driving along and all of a sudden you find a bunch of beautiful houses in the midst of the comfortable brick ones.

Each of the houses is a little different from its neighbors, but they all work together, and they even have their own little park.

The real historic district, which is about two miles from here, on the other side of my road, is not like this. There, you will find a stately Queen Anne next to a little brick building that is now a house but used to be the first free public school in our state (only African-American children were allowed to attend, but it is still quite a landmark). Then there will be a few little bungalows and the luxury condominiums made in the buildings that used to house the Catholic church and parochial school, and then another gorgeous Victorian mansion. It is clear that the historic district grew up organically.

The faux-historic district does not have that feeling of authentic history.

But maybe some day it will. Perhaps, as time passes, it will lose its uniformity and people will forget that it was sort of unpacked out of a box one day. Maybe people will think that it was there first, and the ranch houses grew up around it, as the new and rather ugly big brick houses have grown up in what used to be the woods around the historic district.

Right now, it is a place of pretty houses which do not have the continual plumbing and roofing and other problems which attend old houses. It is also in my neighborhood, within walking distance of my church and my work, as is my own house.

I am not rich enough to have to decide between living in the historic district and the faux-historic district, but if I were, I might find it a difficult decision.

 I like the swags on this handsome building.

And the whimsy of the toy soldiers here.

It was a nice day for a walk.

I am trying to change my workout around more, having some days at the gym and some walking and some doing a DVD workout at home.

Perhaps I will join my boys at rock climbing some day (okay, go ahead, laugh) or persuade them to join me in hiking.

But today I expect I will just take the dog for a walk as a break from domestic tasks.

I hope to get some sewing in as well, though, and a few more inches on the first sleeve of Pipes.

Perhaps I should get away from the computer and start actually doing some of these things.

I am reading this book, Flirting with Forty by Jane Porter, because Blessing loaned it to me. We have a good book swap going, and I always like book swaps. I am also enjoying this book.

But there is a plausibility problem. The main character is a divorcee turning 40, and between Christmas and her birthday, she is pretty depressed. I can believe that. I don't relate to her "Look at my wealthy lifestyle it is so empty" angst, but I think I might be pretty depressed if I were a divorcee with kids at the holidays.

She goes to Hawaii to cheer herself up, meets a beautiful young surf instructor, and has a one-night stand with him. Again, I can imagine that some depressed divorcee might do that.

But unless there is some much snappier repartee taking place off the page somewhere, she has been a boring, self-pitying, depressed wimp through the several hours she spent with him. So that is our leading lady. And our leading man has gone to bed with this mopy older woman because.... he's sorry for her? He's really undiscriminating?

And then she goes through all the sort of romantic thinking that I would expect to see in an actual relationship, not in an interaction consisting of a few hours of her whining monosyllabically, his attempting to cheer her up in the same paid-for way that I do for customers at the bookstore, and sex.

I am enjoying the book anyway, but Porter needs to fix up the story. I am hoping she will do so soon.

#2 daughter's musical career is moving forward. #1 daughter and #1 son both are ready to begin college in the fall -- #1 daughter has, I think, actually registered. This is all pretty exciting for me as their mom. And of course I get to be proud of them without having to do any of the work.

I am also very excited about the fact that the church choir I sing in will be doing Randall Thompson's Alleluia . If you click on the title, you will find a page containing, among many other things, a midi file of this piece. Now, in order to listen to it at this page, you have to go down to Randall Thompson (they are in alphabetical order) and click on it. If you go to the trouble to do that, you will see why I love this piece of music so much.

This is not an easy piece. In fact, it is hard. The parts do not mesh in a predictable fashion, there are a lot of octave intervals and things like that -- it's just challenging to sing, that's all.

Bigsax, our director, gave us a bit of a pep talk on how beautiful it was. He pointed out that the words are easy (the words are "Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia..." etc). Then he had us read through it.

I have sung this before, so a lot of it was a duet between me and the piano, but several other choir members mentioned at some point that they thought they had heard it before, and those who can read music came in and out. Bigsax called out "Page 10!" and other helpful stuff for those who were completely lost. After the read-through, we closed up the music. We are going to do it for Easter.

The mood in the choir was subdued. There was a little bit of feeling that it was impossible. We moved on.

Here is the bag I am in the process of making. It has its lining in, but the strap is -- as you can see -- still in a state of uncertainty. It is supposed to have the lining sewn to the fabric, same as the bag. However, this will make a wider strap than I want. So I am considering different possibilities.  At the moment, all the layers are still separate, while I make up my mind.

Like so many homemade bags, it is not as completely convicted of its shape as I would like it to be. It is okay hanging like this, but set it on the floor and it slouches.

This means that it will take only a couple of books to make it all bulgy and odd. I am thinking that some stitching will do the trick -- more like the padding of traditional tailoring than like quilting, but enough to persuade it to be firm rather than formless.

It is Twelfth Night tonight, but I am going to a Twelfth Night party tomorrow night instead, so I may work on this bag tonight. There is a buttonhole in its future, too.

Enough idle persiflage.

My main fitness goal is "30 minutes every day; no excuses!" This phrasing is from the RealAge website. I have been doing 30 minutes most days, but my doctor-mandated goal was 30 minutes three times a week, so I had lots of reasons for not going to the gym, including parent-teacher conferences, taking the kids to the dentist, having fact-checking to do, needing to clean my house, and its being Friday. This meant that I usually did 90 to 120 minutes of cardio a week. My new goal is 210 minutes a week, plus increased strength training, so I have to give up my feeling that Friday mornings are for lounging about.

So here it is, the 4th. You have been following all your healthy resolutions, getting to the gym every day, eating steel-cut oats for breakfast, a bit of chicken and lots of vegetables for dinner, coming home from choir practice and not having any cake, possibly because there isn't any left, but still -- you are in danger of becoming smug.

Ladies, I have the solution to this problem.

Take a 15 year old boy to the gym with you.

Not a weak and weedy one, of course, nor one of those beefy ones that plays football. No, for the best effect on your smugness, you should choose a boy about your own height, but lighter. I picked a boy who does gymnastics and climbing.

He will do 70 lbs at the bicep curl machine, causing his biceps to jump around like little animals under his skin, and then lightly hop off the bench and switch the weights to 30 lbs for you to work in. Your biceps will not leap about like small animals.

Go all the way around the weight room, so he can do way more weight than you at nearly every station.

It is a good plan to do these things in front of the mirrors, so that you can see your own face getting red and your eyes bugging out, while the boy has a slight frown of concentration as he bench presses.

Following your gym visit -- and don't forget to warm up and cool down on the treadmills, so he can run lissomely and chat to you while you try to keep up with the 4 miles an hour pace on your machine -- he will want to eat a couple of cheeseburgers and a batch of cookies and a chocolate protein shake.

He is is trying to bulk up.

This will cure you of your smugness.

Now that I am cured of all smugness, I have another helpful hint to offer you. You know how the underwire of an otherwise perfectly good bra will break, threatening you with being stabbed in the chest with a piece of steel, and also with potential asymmetry if you really rely on that underwire? You can hie yourself down to your local fabric store and buy a new pair of underwires. Just cut a hole in the underwire channel and pull the old one out, and then push the new one in. Your bra will be good as new.