Cowboy Boots Quotes

For I conclude that the enemy is not lipstick, but guilt itself; that we deserve lipstick, if we want it, AND free speech; we deserve to be sexual AND serious--or whatever we please; we are entitled to wear cowboy boots to our own revolution.

Everybody was wearing rhinestones, all those sparkly clothes, and cowboy boots. I decided to wear a black shirt and pants and see if I could get by with it. I did and I've worn black clothes ever since.

Have I ever waxed poetic about the glory that is the fuzzy-chested vampire wearing nothing but cowboy boots?

Law enforcement would rather we remember a dull man as brilliant than take a good hard look at the role they played in this absolute sideshow, and I am sick to death of watching them in their pressed shirts and cowboy boots, in their comfortable leather interview chairs, in hugely successful and critically acclaimed crime documentaries, talking about the intelligence and charm and wiliness of an ordinary misogynist. This story is not that. The story is not that.

Hey. Hands off.”, “Please. Please, please, soooo pretty. Lemme just have one little touch.” “Peabody, isn’t it embarrassing enough you’re wearing pink cowboy boots, again, without standing here drooling on my coat?

And our safe word?" "Wonderwall." Lindsey turned around and cast Luc a sardonic look. " Your safe word is the name of an Oasis song?" "Blondie, I am the arbiter of all things fashionable in this House. Why not music?" "Spoken by a man wearing cowboy boots. I mean, seriously. Who wears cowboy boots ?

Puttin’ on a cowboy hat & a pair of boots doesn’t make you country; Like puttin’ on a ball gown & glass heels won’t make me Cinderella.

He reclined on a delightfully cushioned lounge in the sprawling ranch Paris had rented. In Dallas, Texas, of all places. Promiscuity had decked himself out, too, wearing a Stetson (weird), no shirt (understandable), unfastened jeans (smart) and cowboy boots (weird again). Dude looked ready to rustle cattle or something.

Potential boyfriends could not smoke Merit cigarettes, own or wear a pair of cowboy boots, or eat anything labeled either lite or heart smart. Speech was important, and disqualifying phrases included “I can’t find my nipple ring” and “This one here was my first tattoo.” All street names had to be said in full, meaning no “Fifty-ninth and Lex,” and definitely no “Mad Ave.” They couldn’t drink more than I did, couldn’t write poetry in notebooks and read it out loud to an audience of strangers, and couldn’t use the words flick, freebie, cyberspace, progressive, or zeitgeist. . . . Age, race, weight were unimportant. In terms of mutual interests, I figured we could spend the rest of our lives discussing how much we hated the aforementioned characteristics.

Here's what I've learned about miracles: Sometimes they turn up quick, and sometimes they take their sweet time getting to you. It's hard to tell either way because a miracle never looks exactly the way you think it should. Some miracles are big and flashy, and others are sweet and simple. Some miracles make you want to shout, and others make you want to sing. And some miracles, the very best miracles of all, show up wearing cowboy boots.

I will go to campus alone dressed in antique silk slips and beat-up cowboy boots and gypsy beads, and I will study poetry. I will sit on the edge of the fountain in the plaza and write.

To hell with it. I'm jumping in his bed tonight and having myself a nice little birthday. He's wearing cowboy boots for God's sake. The man doesn't play fair.

Money is just dirty paper with dead presidents' pictures on it.

Have you ever noticed that folks will say ‘Look, he has his mama’s eyes’ or ‘his daddy’s nose,’ but they never say ‘We’re so proud! Look! He’s hung just like grampa’?” - Zach McKnight

Sure.” Through the windshield, Dan could see the Cowboy Boot patrons come and go, probably not talking of Michelangelo.

She'd become an English major for the purest and dullest of reasons: because she liked to read. The university’s “British and American Literature Course Catalog” was, for Madeleine, what its Bergdorf equivalent was for her roommates. A course listing like “English 274: Lily’s Euphues” excited Madeleine the way a pair of Fiorucci cowboy boots did Abby. “English 450A: Hawthorne and James” filled Madeleine with an expectation of sinful hours in bed not unlike what Olivia got from wearing a Lycra skirt and leather blazer in Danceteria. Even as a girl in their house in Prettrybrook, Madeleine wandered into the library, with its shelves of books rising higher than she could reach … and the magisterial presence of all those potentially readable words stopped her in her tracks.

Would Eric enjoy being a Sooner? As I navigated through Shreveport, I wondered if Oklahoma vampires wore cowboy boots and knew all the songs from the musical.

[Mrs. Clare] is a gaunt, trouser-wearing, woolen-shirted, cowboy-booted, ginger-colored, gingery-tempered woman of unrevealed age ("That's for me to know, and you to guess") but promptly revealed opinions, most of which are announced in a voice of rooster-crow altitude and penetration.

white tank top, currently covered by my beloved shearling-lined denim jacket, and a black satin skirt from Teddy’s closet. The slit went a little higher than I was used to—right above mid-thigh—but I loved the way it made me feel. Sultry. I was wearing black cowboy boots that should never be within a ten-foot radius of a horse, but they were perfect for a night at the bar.

Falconer was wearing his street clothes—jeans, a black turtleneck and an empty shoulder holster under his armpit. Cowboy boots. Little bit of beard stubble. John wondered if the guy would walk from one end of the street to the other without winding up covered in bitches.

Law enforcement would rather we remember a dull man as brilliant than take a good hard look at the role they played in this absolute sideshow, and I am sick to death of watching them in their pressed shirts and cowboy boots, in their comfortable leather interview chairs, in hugely successful and critically acclaimed crime documentaries, talking about the intelligence and charm and wiliness of an ordinary misogynist.

I didn’t want to sing. I didn’t want to gorge myself on imitation dairy or put on cowboy boots. But if I could just ignore the world for a month or two, I was confident that I would eventually be able to fully immerse myself in life’s little pleasures while I still had a life left to live.   If

He dresses himself in tight black jeans, Amoco shirt, and polished cowboy boots. His profile sharp as a jackknife, mirror shades throwing back the world, Ben walks hard into town. No one sees him pass. The sky over his head seems to hide the man. He is New Harmony's secret messiah. A small apocalypse lives in his limbs.

[The skeet tournament] It's a competition that I've entered – and won – every year since I was thirteen. And here's the thing – it really pisses them off. All these hunting boys and their daddies show up decked out in camo gear, determined to beat the girl who has the audacity to challenge their masculinity. And, okay, I'll admit it … I like to needle 'em just a bit. I purposely wear the girliest outfit possible – little flowery sundresses with cowboy boots, most years. Drives 'em nuts. If they're going to be beaten by a girl, they'd rather it be some tomboy wearing overalls and a flannel shirt, you know? Stupid sexist pigs.---(Jenna Cafferty)

Big girls had been pulling fine men since the dawn of time, but everyone knew how Hollywood social culture worked.

I wanted to drink all six-foot-whatever of him in like one of those stupidly large cowboy-boot beer glasses at roadside bars.

Daisies. They outlast roses, and they're tough little flowers.

One was a fast-talking, skinny white guy. With him was a big dude wearing a cowboy hat and boots.

I dance like a rodeo tornado, and I make duck soup with extra feathers. To make it taste more authentic, you should try drinking it out of a dusty cowboy boot.

He wore his gun as often as he wore his cowboy boots, an old 44-40 Colt, single action revolver,3

The next day, a dead turtle was left on my doorstep as a warning. I couldn’t figure out as a warning for what, and I guess whoever was watching me picked up on that, because the next morning there was another dead turtle, but this one had several sheets of paper glued to it’s back leg. The pieces of paper contained a long footnoted explanation of all the symbolism involved. It didn’t make a lot of sense to me. The turtle was the “turtle of inquisitiveness” and the cheese smeared on it’s shell meant something, and the little cowboy boots on its feet meant something. Everything about this animal meant something apparently to whoever sent it. I still didn’t get what it was all about. The next morning there was no turtle. Somebody just shot at me from the bushes.

Where did you get that assault weapon?" "Assault weapon?" Zach turned his head to look at her. "Well, lookey there. You're cute when you blush." Maddie's face grew hotter, but at least he'd mistaken the reason for her embarrassment. Zach turned his face back toward the ceiling. "That there's standard equipment, darlin'." "There's nothing standard about that." "I didn't hear you complaining." "Of course not. You sprang it on me when I was mentally incompetent." Zach laughed out loud. "That you were, sweet Maddie that you were." Maddie and Zach

Now tell me, Sawyer O'Donnell, are you more Irish or Hispanic?" "Half and half. Love the Mexican food but also love a good Irish whiskey on occasion. They're both really good lovers, you know. Hot-blooded and stand by their women.

cowboy walks into a bar, the place is almost empty, and he orders a beer. The bartender brings it to him and the cowboy says, ‘Where is everbody?’ “The bartender says, ‘Gone to the hangin.’ “The cowboy says ‘Hangin? Who are they hangin?’ “‘Brown Paper Pete,’ says the bartender. “‘That is a unusual name,’ says the cowboy. “‘Tell you what,’ says the bartender. ‘Call him that because he wears a brown paper hat, brown paper shirt, brown paper trousers, brown paper boots.’ “‘Dang!’ says the cowboy. ‘That’s weird. What are they hangin him for?’ “‘Rustlin,’ says the bartender.

Harris had done exactly what he had been told to do by the sexy dame from Oklahoma. After he had removed all of his clothes, he smirked at her. "Will I do?" Willy, still fully dressed in her steel-tipped cowboy boots, smiled and said, "Oh, yes. Come here, big boy." As soon as he got close enough, she hauled off and kicked him as hard as she could, and Harris fell to the floor, clutching his pride and joy and screaming in pain. Willy calmly strolled over and picked up his shoes and all of his clothes and threw them out the twenty-second-floor window. She left him lying on the floor, naked and writhing in agony. Willy never told a soul what she had done, but she figured it was the least she could do for Fritzi.

The strangest figures we saw were the Slovaks, who were more barbarian than the rest, with their big cow-boy hats, great baggy dirty-white trousers, white linen shirts, and enormous heavy leather belts, nearly a foot wide, all studded over with brass nails. They wore high boots, with their trousers tucked into them, and had long black hair and heavy black moustaches. They are very picturesque, but do not look prepossessing. On the stage they would be set down at once as some old Oriental band of brigands. They are, however, I am told, very harmless and rather wanting in natural self-assertion.

Is she pretty?” That would be a hell yes. Big soft eyes, full pink lips. Legs and tight skirts. And those damn cowboy boots. And the yoga pants and bra top she wore sailing. Long blond hair—-at least he thought it was long; she always kept it wound up and clipped in a messy bun. He’d dated white girls before, a time or two. But never someone that white, from Texas. Or that young. She was what, fifteen years younger, at least. An itty-bitty thing who could throw a grown man to the ground. “Yeah,” he said. “She’s real pretty.

Jilly looked at it with a sinking heart. It was difficult enough when the exotic, undeniably gorgeous creature of her fantasies had turned out to be an obnoxious bully. Of course he had to have a Harley, as well, completing the perfect bad-boy image. With the tattooed teardrops on his high cheekbones and spiky, waist-length, flame-colored hair and his long, leather-clad legs and pointy-toed cowboy boots, he was almost irresistible, despite his manners. A Harley sealed the deal. He was all her adolescent fantasies come true. And it was time to grow up.

There had to be more to wooing a woman than feeding cattle, minding the store, tending the bar, and sex. That wasn't a bad combination in getting to know a woman, but now that he knew Jill, he wanted to hang the moon for her, make the stars brighter, and force daisies to grow from frozen ground.

The trouble with sexy is people have different tastes. Some guys like girls in flashy skimoy clothes with big hair and cowboy boots. Other guys think shy girls that are less obvious are more desirable. Some guys check out her body and others look at her face. It’s all about personal preference.” “What kind of girls do you like?

Leave that cycle at home. I like a truck bed to play around in under the moon and stars.

Last month, I didn't even have the prospect of a relationship. Now I've got one cowboy too many," she said.

A man who listened? Had she found the eighth wonder of the world?

What kind of woman am I?" she asked. "My kind." He grinned.

The third time is not always the charm.

They slept that deep sleep reserved for babies and consenting adults who have worn their bodies out with hot sex.

Wake up every morning and eat a bullfrog first thing, and the rest of the day will go just fine.

That's pretty bold of you, Jill Cleary." His eyes sparkled when he teased. "We've only known each other a few hours, and you're already talking about us getting pets together.

You aren't a nice cowboy. Are you going to break my heart so bad that I have to write a country song about it?

He flipped his hands out to motion her away. "Go change clothes six times and stand in front of the mirror. I'll tell you if your jeans make your butt look fat.

Well, butter my butt and call me a biscuit, I'm livin' with a prophet.

You are full of shit, Sawyer O'Donnell. I believe that you invented the Blarney Stone instead of kissed it.

I want a swallow of whiskey to take that pill," Polly yelled. "Damn things get stuck when you make me take them water.

Are you kin to the Gallaghers or the Brennans?" Jill asked. "Hell, no! If I was, I'd shoot myself in the head with this gun.

Bessie, the old gray mule, had two speeds: slow and stop. A stick of dynamite could not have put any more giddy-up in her pace....

Do just-friends sleep all tangled up like a bunch of baby granddaddy long-legged spiders?

Have I told you today that you look mighty fetchin' in that outfit? he said as he opened the door for her. "Only three times," she answered. "Well, then make it four.

What are you two talking about?" Gladys asked. "We're talkin' about roses, chicken chips, and pork rinds," he said.

Poor old Rhett," Sawyer mumbled. "What about Rhett?" "I just feel sorry for him if he does come to Burnt Boot. He won't have a pretty little redhead to watch his back.

An old black bull threw back his head and bawled when the cows behind him didn't keep up, as if telling them the breakfast buffet was about to be spread, and he wasn't waiting for grace.

He stood and slipped into his jeans, leaving the waist unsnapped as he made his way to the plane in that loose, lanky stride that had her mouth watering. She loved the look of him, like a cowboy in some Madison Avenue ad. Except that he was the real thing, with big,work-roughened hands and scuffed boots and a high-voltage smile that could reduce her to puddles when it was directed her way.

He might tolerate someone dipping into his stash of dark-roast coffee, but nobody messed with his pot. Not even if she was cuter than a bug's ear, with that faint sprinkling of freckles across her nose.

Found in trees. Sometimes also in old silent movie theaters, seaside zoos, magic shops, hat shops, time-travel shops, topiary gardents, cowboy boots, castle turrets, comet museums, dog pounds, mermaid ponds, dragon lairs, library stacks (the ones in the back), piles of leaves, piles of pancakes, the belly of a fiddle, the bell of a flower, or in the company of wild herds of typewriters. But mostly in trees.

The strangest figures we saw were the Slovaks, who were more barbarian than the rest, with their big cow-boy hats, great baggy dirty-white trousers, white linen shirts, and enormous heavy leather belts, nearly a foot wide, all studded over with brass nails. They wore high boots, with their trousers tucked into them, and had long black hair and heavy black moustaches. They are very picturesque, but do not look prepossessing. On

You look at the crime and you look at the criminal. If it's a dope dealer who guns down an undercover narcotics officer, then he gets the gas. If it's a drifter who rapes a three-year-old girl, drowns her by holding her little head in a mudhole, then throws her body off a bridge, then you take his life and thank god he's gone. If it's an escaped convict who breaks into a farmhouse late at night and beats and tortures an elderly couple before burning them with their house, then you strap him in a chair, hook up a few wires, pray for his soul, and pull the switch. And if it's two dopeheads who gang-rape a ten-year-old girl and kick her with pointed-toe cowboy boots until her jaws break, then you happily, merrily, thankfully, gleefully lock them in a gas chamber and listen to them squeal. It's very simple. Their crimes were barbaric. Death is too good for them, much too good.

tooled cowboy boots, engraved hip flask and, in recognition of his new passion for geology, a nineteenth-century explorer’s specimen hammer in a leather case. To bless his second adolescence on turning fifty, a trumpet that had once belonged to Guy Barker. These offerings represented only a fraction of the happiness she urged on him, and sex was only one part of that fraction, and only latterly a failure, elevated by him into a mighty injustice.

Campbell was an ordinary-looking man, but he was extravagantly costumed in a uniform of his own design. He wore a white ten-gallon hat and black cowboy boots decorated with swastikas and stars. He was sheathed in a blue body stocking which had yellow stripes running from his armpits to his ankles. His shoulder patch was a silhouette of Abraham Lincoln’s profile on a field of pale green. He had a broad armband which was red, with a blue swastika in a circle of white.

Be sure to get her home before midnight. She turns into a rabid coyote when the clock strikes twelve." Sawyer moved on down the bar to fill a pitcher with beer. "That true, darlin'?" Tyrell asked. "Got to take the bad with the good," Jill answered.

His saddle, hanging by a stirrup from a peg in the big long log barn, was a good twenty years old; his spurs were of good plain steel—no fancy silver inlays, not such spurs as crowded the dreams of others; he wore plain shoes instead of boots, scorned the trimmings and trappings of the cowboy, although in his younger days he was as good a rider as any of them, a better roper than George. With all his money and family, he was just folks, dressed like any hired hand in overalls and blue chambray shirt;

Her head started spinning, thinking about a date with Rhett O'Donnell. I need to go fishing and clear my mind, she thought. I've always been in love with Tanner, and now Rhett is in the picture. I had trouble handling one secret cowboy. Two is one cowboy too many.

His eyes are cold and restless His wounds have almost healed And she'd give half of Texas Just to change the way he feels She knows his love's in Tulsa And she knows he's gonna go Well it ain't no woman flesh and blood It's that damned old rodeo Well it's bulls and blood It's dust and mud It's the roar of a Sunday crowd It's the white in his knuckles The gold in the buckle He'll win the next go 'round It's boots and chaps It's cowboy hats It's spurs and latigo It's the ropes and the reins And the joy and the pain And they call the thing rodeo She does her best to hold him When his love comes to call But his need for it controls him And her back's against the wall And it's So long girl I'll see you When it's time for him to go You know the woman wants her cowboy Like he wants his rodeo

ZOEY WAS SO absorbed in her digging and the artifacts she was unearthing that she didn’t hear or see a thing until a pair of cowboy boots planted themselves in front of her. Uh-oh. Busted. Pulse thumping, she slowly raised her head, taking in the tips of those dusty boots to the frayed hem of faded Wranglers to the longhorn belt buckle that crowned his zipper—she stopped there a minute to admire the package—then moved on up to sinewy arms folded tightly over a chest so honed she could see the definition of muscles through his white cotton shirt.

When Bay was done she looked down at herself, dressed in a plain white bra, torn bikini underwear, and cowboy boots. “I feel like I’m dressed for the midnight show at the Crazy Horse Saloon,” she muttered. Her mouth went dry when she looked at Owen, who was left wearing cowboy boots and black Calvin Klein’s. The knit cotton underwear hugged him lovingly from waist to thighs. He was a female’s fantasy come to life. They stared at each other, enjoying what they saw. And realizing just how close they’d come to losing their lives. “You look good,” he said.

I hear it was the fact that the Brennans had a hellfireanddamnation preacher runnin' their family back in Prohibition days and you Gallaghers were runnin' moonshine to get by and got caught. Your family blamed the Brennans for rattin' you out, and that started a feud," Rosalie said.

Did you ever hear of the turd theory?" she asked. He shook his head. "It goes like this. You think if a certain obnoxious person wasn't in your life, then everything would be just peachy. Then that person is miraculously out of your life, and behold, another turd floats to the top," Jill said.

She let her gaze travel over him in a slow appreciation of his tall, lean, muscular frame. She guessed he stood at least six-three in his boots. “I suppose not,” she said. “It would be only prime grass-fed beef and Idaho potatoes for you.” He crossed his arms over his broad chest and leaned on the door frame studying her. “Miz Powell, if I didn’t know better, I’d think you were undressing me with those pretty blue-green eyes of yours.” A guilty flush infused her face but she refused to give him the advantage. She opted for a strong offense instead. “So what if I was? Weren’t you quite fixated on my ass at Denver airport?” He raised a sandy eyebrow. “You noticed that, eh?” His confession came with a shameless grin attached. She jutted her chin. “Quid pro quo, Counselor. What do you say to that?” He approached her slowly, the smile in his eyes transforming in a blink to a wicked gleam. A gleam that promised very bad things. His reply sent a warning signal to every nerve in her body. “I’d say, why just use your eyes?

In addition to Linda and me, there's a brother, a strange little guy named Bradley, obsessed with his own cowboy boots. He paces areound and around the house, staring at his feet and humming the G. I. Joe song from the television commmercial. He is the ringleader of a neighborhood gang of tiny boys, four-year olds, who throw dirt and beat each other with sticks all day long. In the evenings he comes to dinner with an imaginnary friend named Charcoal. 'Charcoal really needs a bath', my mother says, spooning Spaghettios onto his plate. His hands are perfectly clean right up to the wrists and the center of his face is cleared so we can see what he looks like. The rest of him is dirt.

George is very far, right now, from sneering at any of these fellow creatures. They may be crude and mercenary and dull and low, but he is proud, is glad, is almost indecently gleeful to be able to stand up and be counted in their ranks—the ranks of that marvelous minority, The Living. They don't know their luck, these people on the sidewalk, but George knows his—for a little while at least—because he is freshly returned from the icy presence of The Majority, which Doris is to join. I am alive, he says to himself, I am alive! And life-energy surges hotly through him, and delight, and appetite. How good to be in a body—even this beat-up carcass—that still has warm blood and semen and rich marrow and wholesome flesh! The scowling youths on the corners see him as a dodderer no doubt, or at best as a potential score. Yet he claims a distant kinship with the strength of their young arms and shoulders and loins. For a few bucks he could get any one of them to climb into the car, ride back with him to his house, strip off butch leather jacket, skin-tight Levi's, shirt and cowboy boots and take a naked, sullen young athlete, in the wrestling bout of his pleasure. But George doesn't want the bought unwilling bodies of these boys. He wants to rejoice in his own body—the tough triumphant old body of a survivor. The body that has outlived Jim and is going to outlive Doris.

Never play the princess when you can be the queen: rule the kingdom, swing a scepter, wear a crown of gold. Don’t dance in glass slippers, crystal carving up your toes -- be a barefoot Amazon instead, for those shoes will surely shatter on your feet. Never wear only pink when you can strut in crimson red, sweat in heather grey, and shimmer in sky blue, claim the golden sun upon your hair. Colors are for everyone, boys and girls, men and women -- be a verdant garden, the landscape of Versailles, not a pale primrose blindly pushed aside. Chase green dragons and one-eyed zombies, fierce and fiery toothy monsters, not merely lazy butterflies, sweet and slow on summer days. For you can tame the most brutish beasts with your wily wits and charm, and lizard scales feel just as smooth as gossamer insect wings. Tramp muddy through the house in a purple tutu and cowboy boots. Have a tea party in your overalls. Build a fort of birch branches, a zoo of Legos, a rocketship of Queen Anne chairs and coverlets, first stop on the moon. Dream of dinosaurs and baby dolls, bold brontosaurus and bookish Belle, not Barbie on the runway or Disney damsels in distress -- you are much too strong to play the simpering waif. Don a baseball cap, dance with Daddy, paint your toenails, climb a cottonwood. Learn to speak with both your mind and heart. For the ground beneath will hold you, dear -- know that you are free. And never grow a wishbone, daughter, where your backbone ought to be.

Jill is mine and Polly's only living relative and she has come to Burnt Boot to work for us. And this bunkhouse is big enough for the two of you." Sawyer wasn't too sure about that last statement. The bunkhouse had looked huge when he moved in, but a woman living in it would damn sure make it smaller in a hurry. Travis Tritt's old song "TROUBLE" played through his mind.

When I’m given a role, the first thing I do is read the play over and over again. I scour the script and write down everything the character says about himself and everything that everyone else says about him. I immerse myself in my character and imagine what it might be like to be that person. When I played Cassio in Othello I imagined what it would be like to be a lieutenant in the Venetian navy in 1604. I sat down with Ewan McGregor and Chiwetel Ejiofor and together we decided that Othello, Iago and Cassio had soldiery in their bones. I took from the script that Cassio was talented and ambitious, with no emotional or physical guard - and that’s how I played the part. For me, acting is about recreating the circumstances that would make me feel how my character is feeling. In the dressing room, I practise recreating those circumstances in my head and I try to not get in the way of myself. For example, in act two of Othello, when Cassio is manipulated to fight Roderigo and loses his rank, some nights I would burst into tears; other nights I wouldn’t but I would still feel the same emotion, night after night. Just as in life, the way we respond to catastrophe or death will be different every time because the process is unconscious. By comparison, in Chekhov’s Ivanov I played the young doctor, Lvov. Lvov was described as “a prig and a bigot … uprightness in boots … tiresome … completely sincere”. His emotions were locked away. I worked around the key phrase: “Forgive me, I’m going to tell you plainly.” I practised speaking gravely and sincerely without emotion and I actually noticed how that carried over into my personal life: when I played the open-hearted Cassio, I felt really free; when I played the pent-up Lvov, I felt a real need to release myself from the shackles of that character. It’s exhilarating to act out the emotions of a character - it’s a bit like being a child again. You flex the same muscles that you did when you pretended to be a cowboy or a policeman: acting is a grown-up version of that with more subtlety and detail. You’re responding with real emotions to imaginary situations. When I’m in a production I never have a day when I haven’t laughed, cried or screamed. There are times when I wake up stiff from emotional exhaustion. Film is a much more intimate and thoughtful medium than theatre because of the proximity of the camera. The camera can read your thoughts. On stage, if you have a moment of vulnerability you can hide it from the other actors; on film, the camera will see you feel that emotion and try to suppress it. Similarly, if you’re pretending to feel something that isn’t there, it won’t be believable.

She slapped at him, but he grabbed her arm and pulled her forward over the loose hay to hug her tightly. Her hands landed on his chest with a snap. She looked up, and before she even had time to shut her eyes, his lips were on hers. Warmth---that's what she felt at first. As the kiss deepened, it grew hotter, and when his tongue traced the outside of her mouth, it turned downright scorching.

Clouds carried me forward from there. Others were in the church--I knew that logically--but I saw no one. No one but Marlboro Man and his black tuxedo and his white formal tie, and the new black cowboy boots he’d bought especially for the occasion. His short hair, which was the color of pewter. His gentle smile. He was a vision--strong, solid, perfect. But it was the smile that propelled me forward, the reassuring look on his face. It wasn’t a smug, overconfident smile. It was a smile loaded with emotion--thoughts of our history, perhaps. Of the story that brought us to that moment. Relief that we’d finally reached our destined end, which was actually a beautiful beginning. Gratefulness that we’d met by chance and had wound up finding love. And suddenly, I was beside him. My arm in his. My heart entirely in his hands.

It was so quiet. I thought those two women had kidnapped you." "Did that make you sad?" His eyes twinkled, and a smile tickled the corners of his mouth. Dammit! Why did she have to look at his mouth? That made her think of that amazing kiss, and that put a little extra giddy-up in her pulse. "It sure did. I didn't want to stock shelves and slice bologna and still keep everyone from killing each other." She smiled sweetly.

Though my mother and I hadn't parted on good terms, once a month, huge boxes would arrive, reminders I was never far from her mind. Sweet honey-puffed rice, twenty-four packs of individually wrapped seasoned seaweed, microwavable rice, shrimp crackers, boxes of Pepero, and cups of Shin ramen I would subsist on for weeks on end in an effort to avoid the dining hall. She sent clothing steamers, lint rollers, BB creams, packages of socks. A new "this is nice brand" skirt she'd found on sale at T.J. Maxx. The cowboy boots arrived in one of these packages after my parents had vacationed in Mexico. When I slipped them on I discovered they'd already been broken in. My mother had worn them around the house for a week, smoothing the hard edges in two pairs of socks for an hour every day, molding the flat sole with the bottom of her feet, wearing in the stiffness, breaking the tough leather to spare me all discomfort.

Hey, ya'll should come home with us. Verdie has a pot roast in the oven that will melt in your mouth," Finn said. He was as tall as Sawyer and had the bluest eyes Jill had ever seen on a man. Callie nodded at his side as she corralled four kids, and Verdie poked her head out around Finn's shoulder to say, "Yes, we'd love to have you. Got plenty of food and plenty of these wild urchins to entertain you. If that don't keep you laughing, then there's a parrot that never shuts up and a bunch of dogs." "And a cat," a little girl said shyly.

Back at the oak the men lounged in the shade and finished up their meal. Watching Clayt down at the creek, Nestor threw out a quiet question for anyone who would listen. “How come Clayt don’t wear no spurs?” “Don’t need ’em,” Lou said. “You seen him ride. He can purty much control a horse with just his knees and neck-reinin’.” Nestor lay back and propped on both elbows. Lifting a leg, he turned one boot in profile and spun the rowel with the toe of his other boot. “Hell, I like the way it sounds when I walk.” Lou stood and brushed off his trousers. “He don’t need that neither.

He shoved her feet down to the floor, slid down the sofa, and cupped her face in his hands. She barely had time to moisten her lips and shut her eyes before his mouth closed in to claim hers in a fiery hot kiss. She felt as if her whole body was floating off the sofa toward the ceiling. His hands on her cheeks were the only thing that kept her grounded. Her arms went around his neck. Both hands twisted into his hair for better leverage as his tongue found its way past her lips to do a beautiful two-step with hers. Sweet Jesus! A kiss had never done that to her before. She wanted more...

The table was set for two, as usual, with one exception. Right smack in the middle was an old chipped crock cookie jar. Glazing cracks started at the bottom and wove their way in different directions, some on the sides, with others winding their way around in circles. "Are we having cookies with our waffles?" Jill asked. "Look at it closely," Sawyer grinned, "Pay especially close attention to the lid." "Daisies," She smiled. "I would have gone out into the pasture and picked some wild ones for you, but it's the wrong time of year. That's all I could find with a daisy on it," Sawyer said

I remember, one week, we all started playing strip poker. This is more like it, I thought. It wasn’t really even poker, but was more like: pick an ace and lose an item of clothing. I tried one night to rig the cards so that I could end up naked with Stephie, this girl I really fancied. I carefully counted out the cards and the aces, and rather unsubtly made sure I was sitting next to her, when we started playing. Annoyingly, she then swapped places when someone else came to join us and I ended naked next to Mick, embarrassed and self-conscious. (That will teach me to cheat.) Most of the time my attempts to get a girl fell pretty flat. In fact, whenever I really liked a girl I would always end up losing her to someone else, mainly because I found it so hard to make my feelings known and to pluck up the courage just to ask her out. I remember a friend coming down to the island to stay at the end of one summer, and within twenty-four hours he was in bed with the girl I had been chasing all holidays! I couldn’t believe it. What the hell did he have that I didn’t? I noticed that he wore these brown suede cowboy boots, so I went out and bought a secondhand pair, but I just looked stupid in them. To make matters worse, this friend then went on to describe to me in great detail what they had got up to in that bed. Aarrgh. It kind of summed up my attempts at womanizing.

I told my best friend in the world, my sister. “Okay, so I’m not going now,” I told Betsy over the phone. I’d awakened her from a deep collegiate sleep. “Going where?” she asked groggily. “Chicago,” I continued. “What?” she shrieked. That woke her up. That woke her up but good. “I’m, like, totally in love,” I said. “I’m totally in love with the Marlboro Man.” I giggled wildly. “Oh, God,” she said. “Are you gonna get married to him and move out to the boonies and have his babies?” “No!” I exclaimed. “I’m not moving to the boonies. But I might have his babies.” I giggled wildly again. “What about Chicago?” Betsy asked. “Well…but…,” I argued. “You have to see him in his Wranglers.” Betsy paused. “Well, so much for this conversation. I’ve gotta go back to sleep anyway--I’ve got class at noon and I’m exhausted…” “And you should see him in his cowboy boots,” I continued. “Alrighty, then…” “Okay, well, don’t worry about me,” I continued. “I’ll just be here, kissing the Marlboro Man twenty-four hours a day in case you need me.” “Whatever…,” Betsy said, trying hard not to laugh. “Okay, well…study hard!” I told her. “Yep,” she replied. “And don’t sleep around,” I admonished. “Gotcha,” Betsy replied. She was used to this. “And don’t smoke crack,” I added. “Righty-oh,” she replied, yawning. “Don’t skip class, either,” I warned. “You mean, like you did?” Betsy retorted. “Well, then, don’t go all the way!” I repeated. Click.

Afterward, we went to grab a bite of dinner. Just like at lunch, we talked forever. We shut that restaurant down. They actually had to tell us to leave because they were closing. So then we stood in the parking lot talking. It was freezing but neither of us wanted to go home. We stood out there so long that the employees of the restaurant had already cleaned up and left. We were completely alone in the lot. Then she did the most adorable thing. I don’t know how the conversation had gone this way but flat feet came up. So all of a sudden she chirped, “I have really flat feet. I’m like a rabbit!” And then, without warning, she whipped off one of her cowboy boots and tapped her foot on the ground really fast. Bump-bump-bump-bump. “I’m like Thumper from Bambi!” she exclaimed. I couldn’t believe it. I thought, This girl is crazy and I absolutely love it. I was laughing, she was laughing, and I decided to go in for the kiss. I leaned in and then she suddenly leaned back. Crap. I was so embarrassed. “I’m sorry. I went in for it, and it wasn’t good.” I hung my head down. “No, no, no, I panicked! Please, try again!” she said. “No, I won’t make a fool of myself twice in one night. We’ll try again another day,” I said and I changed the subject. I was talking about something else for a while and then she whispered, “Just kiss me.” I did and it was incredible. Every moment I spent with this girl, I fell more and more in love with her.

One of our best dates was actually a weekend when we went to the wedding of a friend from the Teams. The couple married in Wimberley, Texas, a small town maybe forty miles south of Austin and a few hours’ drive from where we lived. We were having such a pleasant day, we didn’t want it to end. “It doesn’t have to end,” suggested Chris as we headed for the car. “The kids are at my parents’ for the weekend. Where do you want to go?” We googled for hotels and found a place in San Antonio, a little farther south. Located around the corner from the Alamo, the hotel seemed tailor-made for Chris. There was history in every floorboard. He loved the authentic Texan and Old West touches, from the lobby to the rooms. He read every framed article on the walls and admired each artifact. We walked through halls where famous lawmen-and maybe an outlaw or two-had trod a hundred years before. In the evening, we relaxed with coffee out on the balcony of our room-something we’d never managed to do when we actually owned one. It was one of those perfect days you dream of, completely unplanned. I have a great picture of Chris sitting out there in his cowboy boots, feet propped up, a big smile on his face. It’s still one of my favorites. People ask about Chris’s love of the Old West. It was something he was born with, really. It had to be in his genes. He grew up watching old westerns with his family, and for a time became a bronco-bustin’ cowboy and ranch hand. More than that, I think the clear sense of right and wrong, of frontier justice and strong values, appealed to him.

But what should he wear? I thought about having him laid to rest in his uniform. But the truth is he hated wearing it. He really needed to be dressed in something he was comfortable in. And that wasn’t going to be in a suit, either: he hated being in a jacket and tie even more than in a uniform. Tie? Ha! I got a pair of his best pressed jeans. They had a nice crease in the pants leg, just like he liked. I found one of his plaid button-down shirts, another favorite. Kryptek, which produces tactical gear and apparel and was one of Chris’s favorite companies, had presented him with a big silver belt buckle that he loved. It was very cowboy, and in that way very much who Chris was. “You think I can pull this off?” he’d asked, showing me how it looked right after he got it. “Hell, yeah,” I told him. I made sure that was with him as well. But if there was any item of clothing that really touched deep into Chris’s soul, it was his cowboy boots. They were a reminder of who he was when he was young, and they were part of who he’d been since getting out of the military. He had a really nice pair of new boots that had been custom made. He hadn’t had a chance to wear them much, and I couldn’t decide whether to bury him in those or another pair that were well worn and very comfortable. I asked the funeral director for his opinion. “We usually don’t do shoes,” he said. It can be very difficult to get them onto the body. “But if it’s important to you, we can do it.” I thought about it. Was the idea of burying them with Chris irrational? The symbolism seemed important. But that could work the other way, too--they would surely be important to Bubba someday. Maybe I should save them for him. In the end, I decided to set them near Chris’s casket when his body was on view, then collect them later for our son. But Chris had the last word. Through a miscommunication--or maybe something else--they were put in the casket when he was laid to rest. So obviously that was the way it should have been.

We talked into the night, the room blurring around us as it had done at the dance in West Side Story when Tony and Maria first saw each other across a crowd of people. Tonight, tonight, it all began tonight. My friends giggled and sipped wine at the table where I’d abandoned them earlier in the night, oblivious to the fact that their redheaded amiga had just been struck by a lightning bolt. Before I could internally break into the second chorus of song, my version of Tony--this mysterious cowboy--announced abruptly that he had to go. Go? I thought. Go where? There’s no place on earth but this smoky bar…But there was for him: he and his brother had plans to cook Christmas turkeys for some needy folks in his small town. Mmmm. He’s nice, too, I thought as a pang stabbed my insides. “Bye,” he said with a gentle smile. And with that, his delicious boots walked right out of the J-Bar, his dark blue Wranglers cloaking a body that I was sure had to have been chiseled out of granite. My lungs felt tight, and I still smelled his scent through the bar smoke in the air. I didn’t even know his name. I prayed it wasn’t Billy Bob.

I’d gone on dates with every flavor of cute boy under the sun. Except for one. Cowboy. I’d never even spoken to a cowboy, let alone ever known one personally, let alone ever dated one, and certainly, absolutely, positively never kissed one--until that night on my parents’ front porch, a mere couple of weeks before I was set to begin my new life in Chicago. After valiantly rescuing me from falling flat on my face just moments earlier, this cowboy, this western movie character standing in front of me, was at this very moment, with one strong, romantic, mind-numbingly perfect kiss, inserting the category of “Cowboy” into my dating repertoire forever. The kiss. I’ll remember this kiss till my very last breath, I thought to myself. I’ll remember every detail. Strong, calloused hands gripping my upper arms. Five o’clock shadow rubbing gently against my chin. Faint smell of boot leather in the air. Starched denim shirt against my palms, which have gradually found their way around his trim, chiseled waist… I don’t know how long we stood there in the first embrace of our lives together. But I do know that when that kiss was over, my life as I’d always imagined it was over, too. I just didn’t know it yet.

I brushed my teeth like a crazed lunatic as I examined myself in the mirror. Why couldn’t I look the women in commercials who wake up in a bed with ironed sheets and a dewy complexion with their hair perfectly tousled? I wasn’t fit for human eyes, let alone the piercing eyes of the sexy, magnetic Marlboro Man, who by now was walking up the stairs to my bedroom. I could hear the clomping of his boots. The boots were in my bedroom by now, and so was the gravelly voice attached to them. “Hey,” I heard him say. I patted an ice-cold washcloth on my face and said ten Hail Marys, incredulous that I would yet again find myself trapped in the prison of a bathroom with Marlboro Man, my cowboy love, on the other side of the door. What in the world was he doing there? Didn’t he have some cows to wrangle? Some fence to fix? It was broad daylight; didn’t he have a ranch to run? I needed to speak to him about his work ethic. “Oh, hello,” I responded through the door, ransacking the hamper in my bathroom for something, anything better than the sacrilege that adorned my body. Didn’t I have any respect for myself? I heard Marlboro Man laugh quietly. “What’re you doing in there?” I found my favorite pair of faded, soft jeans. “Hiding,” I replied, stepping into them and buttoning the waist. “Well, c’mere,” he said softly. My jeans were damp from sitting in the hamper next to a wet washcloth for two days, and the best top I could find was a cardinal and gold FIGHT ON! T-shirt from my ‘SC days. It wasn’t dingy, and it didn’t smell. That was the best I could do at the time. Oh, how far I’d fallen from the black heels and glitz of Los Angeles. Accepting defeat, I shrugged and swung open the door. He was standing there, smiling. His impish grin jumped out and grabbed me, as it always did. “Well, good morning!” he said, wrapping his arms around my waist. His lips settled on my neck. I was glad I’d spritzed myself with Giorgio. “Good morning,” I whispered back, a slight edge to my voice. Equal parts embarrassed at my puffy eyes and at the fact that I’d slept so late that day, I kept hugging him tightly, hoping against hope he’d never let go and never back up enough to get a good, long look at me. Maybe if we just stood there for fifty years or so, wrinkles would eventually shield my puffiness. “So,” Marlboro Man said. “What have you been doing all day?” I hesitated for a moment, then launched into a full-scale monologue. “Well, of course I had my usual twenty-mile run, then I went on a hike and then I read The Iliad. Twice. You don’t even want to know the rest. It’ll make you tired just hearing about it.” “Uh-huh,” he said, his blue-green eyes fixed on mine. I melted in his arms once again. It happened any time, every time, he held me. He kissed me, despite my gold FIGHT ON! T-shirt. My eyes were closed, and I was in a black hole, a vortex of romance, existing in something other than a human body. I floated on vapors. Marlboro Man whispered in my ear, “So…,” and his grip around my waist tightened. And then, in an instant, I plunged back to earth, back to my bedroom, and landed with a loud thud on the floor. “R-R-R-R-Ree?” A thundering voice entered the room. It was my brother Mike. And he was barreling toward Marlboro Man and me, his arms outstretched. “Hey!” Mike yelled. “W-w-w-what are you guys doin’?” And before either of us knew it, Mike’s arms were around us both, holding us in a great big bear hug. “Well, hi, Mike,” Marlboro Man said, clearly trying to reconcile the fact that my adult brother had his arms around him. It wasn’t awkward for me; it was just annoying. Mike had interrupted our moment. He was always doing that.

I opened the front door of my parents’ house the next evening. His starched blue denim shirt caught my eye only seconds before his equally blue eyes did. “Hello,” he said, smiling. Those eyes. They were fixed on mine, and mine on his, for more seconds than is customary at the very beginning of a first date. My knees--the knees that had turned to rubber bands that night four months earlier in a temporary fit of illogical lust--were once again as firm as cooked spaghetti. “Hello,” I answered. I was wearing sleek black pants, a violet V-necked sweater, and spiked black boots--a glaring contrast to the natural, faded denim ensemble he’d chosen. Fashionwise, we were hilariously mismatched. I could sense that he noticed this, too, as my skinny heels obnoxiously clomped along the pavement of my parents’ driveway. We talked through dinner; if I ate, I wasn’t aware of it. We talked about my childhood on the golf course; about his upbringing in the country. About my dad, the doctor; about his dad, the rancher. About my lifelong commitment to ballet; about his lifelong passion for football. About my brother Mike; about his older brother, Todd, who had died when he was a teenager. About Los Angeles and celebrities; cows and agriculture. By the end of the evening, I had no idea what exactly I’d even said. All I knew was, I was riding in a Ford F250 diesel pickup with a cowboy--and there was nowhere else on earth I wanted to be.

Marlboro Man’s call woke me up the next morning. It was almost eleven. “Hey,” he said. “What’s up?” I hopped out of bed, blinking and stumbling around my room. “Who me? Oh, nothing.” I felt like I’d been drugged. “Were you asleep?” he said. “Who, me?” I said again, trying to snap out of my stupor. I was stalling, trying my darnedest to get my bearings. “Yes. You,” he said, chuckling. “I can’t believe you were asleep!” “I wasn’t asleep! I was…I just…” I was a loser. A pathetic, late-sleeping loser. “You’re a real go-getter in the mornings, aren’t you?” I loved it when he played along with me. I rubbed my eyes and pinched my own cheek, trying to wake up. “Yep. Kinda,” I answered. Then, changing the subject: “So…what are you up to today?” “Oh, I had to run to the city early this morning,” he said. “Really?” I interrupted. The city was over two hours from his house. “You got an early start!” I would never understand these early mornings. When does anyone ever sleep out there? Marlboro Man continued, undaunted. “Oh, and by the way…I’m pulling into your driveway right now.” Huh? I ran to my bathroom mirror and looked at myself. I shuddered at the sight: puffy eyes, matted hair, pillow mark on my left cheek. Loose, faded pajamas. Bag lady material. Sleeping till eleven had not been good for my appearance. “No. No you’re not,” I begged. “Yep. I am,” he answered. “No you’re not,” I repeated. “Yes. I am,” he said. I slammed my bathroom door and hit the lock. Please, Lord, please, I prayed, grabbing my toothbrush. Please let him be joking. I brushed my teeth like a crazed lunatic as I examined myself in the mirror. Why couldn’t I look the women in commercials who wake up in a bed with ironed sheets and a dewy complexion with their hair perfectly tousled? I wasn’t fit for human eyes, let alone the piercing eyes of the sexy, magnetic Marlboro Man, who by now was walking up the stairs to my bedroom. I could hear the clomping of his boots. The boots were in my bedroom by now, and so was the gravelly voice attached to them. “Hey,” I heard him say. I patted an ice-cold washcloth on my face and said ten Hail Marys, incredulous that I would yet again find myself trapped in the prison of a bathroom with Marlboro Man, my cowboy love, on the other side of the door. What in the world was he doing there? Didn’t he have some cows to wrangle? Some fence to fix? It was broad daylight; didn’t he have a ranch to run? I needed to speak to him about his work ethic. “Oh, hello,” I responded through the door, ransacking the hamper in my bathroom for something, anything better than the sacrilege that adorned my body. Didn’t I have any respect for myself? I heard Marlboro Man laugh quietly. “What’re you doing in there?” I found my favorite pair of faded, soft jeans. “Hiding,” I replied, stepping into them and buttoning the waist. “Well, c’mere,” he said softly.

Soon it was time for us to leave; the clock had struck midnight, and we had miles to go before we slept. After throwing my bouquet and saying good-byes, Marlboro Man and I ran through the doors of the club and climbed into the back of a smoky black limousine--the vehicle that would take us to the big city miles away, where we’d stay before flying to Australia the next day. As we pulled away from the waving, birdseed-throwing crowd at the front door of the club, we immediately settled into each other’s arms, melting into a puddle of white silk and black boots and sleepy, unbridled romance. It was all so new. New dress…new love…a new country--Australia--that neither of us had ever seen. A new life together. A new life for me. New crystal, silver, china. A newly renovated, tiny cowboy house that would be our little house on the prairie when we returned from our honeymoon. A new husband. My husband. I wanted to repeat it over and over again, wanted to shout it to the heavens. But I couldn’t speak. I was busy. Passion had taken over--a beast had been unleashed. Sleep deprived and exhausted from the celebration of the previous week, once inside the sanctity of the limousine, we were utterly powerless to stop it…and we let it fly. It was this same passion that had gotten us through the early stages of our relationship, and, ultimately, through the choice to wave good-bye to any life I’d ever imagined for myself. To become a part of Marlboro Man’s life instead. It was this same passion that assured me that everything was exactly as it should be. It was the passion that made it all make sense.