I’m calling these last few weeks of columns The Dork Series. 

Apostrophe love. Bad dancing.  

If I told you about the history courses I’ve taken recently, you’d probably give me a wedgie and dunk my head in a toilet. 

So yeah. Let’s make it worse. 

A year ago, when Burt Bacharach died, I confessed my lifelong love for the Carpenters. 

This is a deep, deep secret I’ve held since elementary school. To divulge such adoration is risky, as this fellow fan discovered. 

I would venture to say most of my friends are oblivious to my passion. And how many years was I married before I played the Carpenters in front of my husband? 

I don’t know. I probably waited until it was very expensive to leave me. 

When I happened across an article on a new book about the life of Karen Carpenter — well, that was a good day. 

I had to buy it online because — inexplicably — I could not locate a brick-and-mortar store stocking this gem of a book.  

Oh. I just figured it out. The stores were selling out. 

Each day, I hurried home, my gaze scanning the front step, my hands fumbling in the mailbox, searching, always searching, for that book.  

I usually have six or eight books I’m in the process of reading. But when Lead Sister: The Story of Karen Carpenter arrived, it was the only book I read until I turned the last page. 

“Did you know,” I said to my husband one day, “that John Lennon once told Karen Carpenter she had the best singing voice? John Lennon!” 

Not my favorite Beatle, but I’ll take the compliment. 

As this query I directed at my husband was sandwiched between my dressing as an android and my Zoom chat with a curator from my favorite castle — I think he finally accepted the cost of ending this marriage. 

Want to know something? I really have two castles tied for first place in my heart.  

 I failed to tell my nearest and dearest about them, too. 

Although, unlike my Carpenters love, this wasn’t on purpose. 

We visited one of those castles last summer. When I told my husband I might cry upon arrival, he was gobsmacked. 

“You — you never said anything about this castle. Ever. You feel this strongly about it?” he said.  

Um, the Loch Ness Monster lives off the shores of this castle.  

A castle, the United Kingdom, and a giant water creature? 

“On brand,” my friend said when I relayed this story. 

“You’ve always wanted to see this castle? I had no idea!” Willie said. 

“On brand,” my husband sighed, rolling his eyes, because Willie thinks I still like white bread and the color pink. 

Over the course of a week, Karen Carpenter and I were inseparable. I read that book by flashlight at two in the morning, in the cold dark of my car while waiting for my son to finish his after school job, with a beer and my beagle after the sun had gone down. 

My Carpenters playlist ran incessantly. I Googled Carpenters tee shirts. I learned about Karen Carpenter’s life. 

Well, I learned more about Karen Carpenter’s life because, um, hello? I’ve only seen The Karen Carpenter Story like a thousand times. I can already tell you a lot about Karen Carpenter. 

Now I can tell you more. 

I was even able to Google Earth the Carpenters’ house, as featured on the cover of their Now & Then album and I —   

Wait. That’s weird, right? Yeah. That’s weird. Forget I said it.  

Although, let’s be honest. At this point, my weirdness is no longer a secret.  

But Karen Carpenter — a tomboy drummer with a rare voice and easy listening musical style in a time of rock and disco — never apologized for who she was. 

Maybe I should be less apologetic for who I am. 

To that end, I have one more story for The Dork Series. 

Sorry about that. 

Wait, no. Let’s try that again. 

I have one more story in The Dork Series. 

So shove it. 

Ugh. No. I don’t mean it. Forget it. 

Let’s just talk next week.