In college, I moved every year. Sometimes more than once. Come spring term, I'd cram all my junk into a few boxes, toss them into the back of someone's truck and relocate, either to be closer to campus, or to find a better roommate situation (for a while, I had one of those Look at me! I'm amazing! Wait, why are you paying attention to HER when I'M in the room? kind of roommates. She made the scab picking finger licker of the previous semester seem suddenly dreamy by comparison). When I lived in Boston I moved a lot, too. It was the never-ending search for cheaper rent and more space that ended, naturally, in a 280-square-foot, sixteen-hundred-dollar-a-month apartment in New York City. Because that is what we call LOGICAL.

What's unfathomable to me now is, I didn't even mind it back then. I actually liked moving. And now, with the movers coming Saturday and my living room a dizzying mess of cardboard and assorted WTF Did I Buy This items, I kind of want to swallow my own tongue.

On Saturday, my mom and I spent the better part of the day cleaning, boxing, and priming walls. Mom did all the bending work (she does not eff around, people. My oven is so clean you could set it to low and keep your baby warm in there. Not that I'm encouraging you to bake your baby - it's just that hygienic) and I inched my way through the apartment with my hand attached to a paint roller. Now, there are blisters. And parts of my body that do not work. I recognize that this is just what comes with getting old(er), but I swear, if today is the day they come around asking for volunteers to be in a Magnum P.I./MacGyver sandwich and I'm not able to raise my hand, I am going to be SO bent out of shape.

The part of this move I do like is the part of moving I have always liked. All the newness. New spaces to decorate, new closets to over stuff. I've also really enjoyed setting up my soon-to-graduate sister with all of my gently used extras. For instance, between the two of us, the Dork Lord and I have upwards of a DOZEN sets of white sheets. And as we're not running a brothel or making any living room forts (yet. Though, frankly, is there any other reason to have children other than living room forts and lying about Santa Claus?), I figured, why not share the wealth. And what do you know, the whole giving thing is actually really affirming. You know, as in, it makes me feel like my massive credit card debt wasn't accumulated in vain.  

Watching my favorite childhood television show as an adult is an eye-opening experience. Years later, I’m still in love with Little House on the Prairie, but for reasons that would have totally and completely eluded me as a kid.

Like in the very first episode of Season One, Pa breaks his ribs falling from a tree. Good old Doc Baker comes out to Plum Creek to tend to him, and while he’s wrapping Pa’s bare torso in long strips of cloth, it occurred to me:

Holy shit. Charles Ingalls is freaking hot.

Long hours of driving a team of oxen and working at the mill made Pa one cut, burly guy. But it’s not just the working man’s chiseled chest and well-defined arms that make him so rarrr. Oh, no.

Pa is also a total sap. But not in a momma’s boy kind of way, of course. He knows when to play the hardass, but he also knows when to get warm and fuzzy. I can’t help but get a bit choked up when he goes all weepy over a lost wheat crop, or when he’s overcome with pride for Half Pint and Mary. This is a man who’s in touch with his feelings.

Pa loves his wife. He flirts and flatters and grabs her by the bonnet to plant big, prairie kisses on her. And when Ma gets upset, he can’t help but crack a smile. It’s as though it no-so-secretly delights him to see her give up that small measure of control that it requires to get her flustered. Which might be exasperating if it weren't totally charming.

“Time spent being angry with you is such as waste,” Ma says to Pa one night in bed. But I can’t help but get the feeling that they both enjoy it. Just a little bit.

Pa is a man who knows how to do things. From fiddle playin’ to plowing a field and shingling a roof, Charles Ingalls is a guy with practical skills. It’s the same kind of competence that makes me so giddy over MacGyver and Thomas Magnum. There is nothing sexier than know-how.

And when it’s combined with a fine physique and emotional availability? Well, I’m suddenly a girl with some serious Pa issues.

Between Saturday and Wednesday of this week, I didn't do a whole lot of sleeping.

Which is why I've been a bit absent. And cranky and spacey and tired and really, really cranky. And, did I mention cranky?

See, where I work, there is no air conditioning. I know, right? That has to be illegal, but it’s not. Ten hours a day, sweating my ta-tas off, choking down rotting garbage smell just to catch a breeze – if that’s not a testament to how much I love those bratty little kids, I don’t know what is.

The only relief comes when at the end of a hot, sweaty workday, I get to go home to my climate control(ish) apartment. Ish. I mean, it’s a window unit. It has its limitations. And on Saturday, it became apparent that my little window air conditioner’s limit was about… 79 degrees. Once it hit 80, the poor old thing couldn’t keep up. And I couldn’t sleep.

Every night, I camped out on the living room couch, which is closer to the coolest air. With Sir Hal stretched out next to me on his back (dude was desperate to get some relief for that furry belly), I wiggled and fidgeted and sweated myself into a frustrated half-sleep. It went on this way for several nights.

Apparently, in my sleepless delirium one night, I did a little online shopping. I say ‘apparently’ because it was only after I got a Your item has shipped! email from Amazon that I even vaguely remember it happening. Sweet god, am I glad I don’t drink heavily. I’m uncomfortable enough with the idea that I don’t remember buying books. I can’t imagine what torment I’d go through if I couldn’t remember how I got home or who this snoring, hairy-backed dude was sleeping next to me.

So, why not buy a new air conditioner? Well, there’s the cost. Which, frankly, became much less of an issue after a few days on the couch. I missed my bed. I missed it a couple hundred bucks worth, at least. Then there was the issue of getting it home and getting it into the window. Those buggers are heavy! And two things I have very little faith in are my physical strength and my aptitude for things which require common sense and simple mechanics. I’m more of an ideas girl.

But after days and nights of being sweaty and exhausted…. Well, see this cut on my finger? That’s the battle wound I got installing my brand new, kick-ass AC unit last night. All. By. Myself.

That’s right. I just watched the entire sixth season of MacGyver. There’s nothing I can’t do.

(Except save Pete from Glaucoma. Because even Mac couldn't do that.)

The question was written in familiar handwriting on a yellow post-it note and stuck to my very own copy of MacGyver, the Complete Second Season. Who loves me indeed! When the package arrived at my office Thursday morning, I’m pretty sure I squealed and did one of those one-legged, hoppy cheerleading moves.

Wheee duct tape!

My affection for Angus MacGyver is paramount. He is challenged only by Thomas Magnum in the fight for the title of Manliest Man Ever, and I’m convinced that any woman who will swear that those fellas don’t make her weak in the knees has to be dead inside. I mean, when MacGyver cracks that top secret military base by constructing a telescope out of the sports page and a watch crystal, even the uptight military scientist lady was all over that.

Swoon.

“I’m pretty handy with a paperclip and bubble gum, myself,” Ben said when I thanked him for the gift to end all gifts.

I laughed. “Yes, I’m sure you are.”

My tone may have hinted ever so slightly at mocking, but that doesn’t mean Ben isn’t useful -- just perhaps not in the same way. When a girl needs help in an elevator shaft, she’d have to go with Angus, for sure. But when it comes to business advice, or cookies and company on a Saturday night, that’s where my TV stud falls decidedly short.

Looking at our rather rocky beginning, it would seem very unlikely that Ben and I would end up as we are. It’s something we acknowledge (though not without the smallest twinge of regret at past errors) and appreciate. I count our friendship among the more worthwhile and important that I have.

And in the end, to be asked the question, Who loves ya? and to know that the answer is, You do! is really something. Something I’ll gladly take over the uncertainty of romance and the headiness of tawdry afternoon affairs. Not that those were a bad way to spend time (wink, wink, nudge, nudge). But it all just seemed so precarious and temporary. We’re stable and reliable and comfortable. And ever the more likely to be around for the Complete Third Season of MacGyver... and of us.

Who loves ya? I do, dude.

* The author apologizes for the extra high sap quotient of this post, but it is very late and she has just seen Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.