Somewhere in my Youth or Childhood

It’s good to know I’m still in love with Christopher Plummer.

Dr. Deb had never seen The Sound of Music until last night. Now, I would have said it wasn’t physically possible to grow up in the U.S. (outside of Amish country) without seeing The Sound of Music at least ten times, more likely twenty, but she’d somehow escaped America’s Favorite Musical. She wished she hadn’t asked when I showed up with the requested three-hour tape, but she made it through the movie without too terribly much moaning and groaning. I’m getting old; the first words out of my mouth were “The Baroness is cool,” and that was in the title credits. (Aside: this does not mean I’m going to start writing Bitter Jilted Janeway fic.)

Now I know why Dr. Deb has a space-alien approach to relationships - she didn’t grow up in love with Christopher Plummer. There’s just something about the Captain - something you get from Orson Wells as Rochester, or Colin Firth as Darcy, or Alan Rickman as pretty much anybody. They’re not handsome men, but they have that animal magnetism thing going - the sort of thing you imagine Miles Vorkosigan exuding. Maybe you can’t do it if you’re a pretty-boy. I get the feeling real live men never exude that way, even the ones who can do it for the camera.

And that’s wrong. Somebody broke them, and there’s nowhere to send out for repairs. Forget prolonging life, forget curing the common cold - if you want to improve the human condition, then find the gene for Christopher Plummer and start transplanting those stem cells.

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