You Get The Ankles And I'll Get The Wrists

And a happy loaf of bread

Almost thirty years ago I was dating my future ex-husband, long distance. I lived in Asheville, North Carolina, and he lived just outside Atlanta, in a suburb called Rex. I would visit him on the weekends, bombing down I-85 in my little white Civic, blowing off the 55mph speed limit by at least 30mph. I never got a ticket, but it was often 2am when I was doing this.

I think I was actually in the car with him when this song came on the Georgia Tech college radio station, at about 2am. It was never identified by the DJ but it hooked me…and I mean it HOOKED me…I had it stuck in my head for at least a week afterwards. These were the blissful days before Google—practically before the Internet—and there was no way to get info on this song other than to actually call the radio station or maybe go to an indie record store and sing the lyrics to the dude behind the counter.

I don’t know how my ex managed to track the song down, but he did. Soul Coughing. What? What kind of name is that for a band? It doesn’t matter. I got the album. Perhaps he even bought it for me. Oh my god, I was in love with this music.

Absurdity, infectious hooks lifted from the Andrews Sisters, stream-of-consciousness lyrics blending with evocative half-narratives. I didn’t need to know what it was about. It was immediately on heavy rotation on my cassette player.

I remember going with my ex to see the band in concert at Little Five Points. It was general admission. My ex was a 6’3” sequoia in a seething mass of freaked-out twentysomething flesh. He did not move, even as the crowd pushed and shoved and the dude next to me was cursing and spilling his drink on us.

Years later I read in an interview with Mike Doughty, the lead singer, that the song, “Down To This,” was about dealing with your ego. And the lyric “you get the ankles and I’ll get the wrists” was about an absurd wish Doughty had to fling his own ego off the roof of his apartment building.

Well, OK!

Seems a little…self conflicted?

I can identify. I’ve warred against my ego. I’ve tried to run away from it. I’ve hidden in the woods from it, only to find it piggybacked on me the whole time. It’s a funny thing.

The less I try to fling it away, the better it behaves, eh?

*BRRRR* time’s up!

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PostScript: I finished the volkornbrot. Here’s pictures of the dough just before I baked it (wooden spoon to illustrate consistency), and the finished loaf all cut up. I have no idea how long I cooked it, but those last 5 degrees are a bitch. It holds at 195F for like an hour before it’ll raise to 200!