the last arrow in my quiver of whimsy

macgyver on macgruber on the super bowl broadcast.

John Hoyer11 Updike (Wesley Russell10, Hartley Titus9, Archibald8, Peter7, Aaron6, Peter5, John4, Lawrence3, Johannes Lourense2 Opdyck, Louris Jansen1) was born in Reading, Pennsylvania.

{the numbers indicate footnotes; no corresponding footnotes were appended}

monday lxxviii

have you ever, for your happiness, met a woman whose harmonious voice gives to her speech the same charm that emanates from her manners? a woman who knows how to speak and to be silent, whose words are happily chosen, whose language is pure, and who concerns herself in your interests with delicacy? her raillery is caressing, her criticism never wounds; she neither discourses nor argues, but she likes to lead a discussion and stop it at the right moment. her manner is affable and smiling, her politeness never forced, her readiness to serve others never servile; she reduces the respect she claims to a soft shadow; she never wearies you, and you leave her satisfied with her and with yourself. her charming grace is conveyed to all the things with which she surrounds herself. everything about her pleases the eye; in her presence you breathe, as it were, your native air. this woman is natural. there is no effort about her; she is aiming at no effect; her feelings are shown simply, because they are true. frank herself, she does not wound the vanity of others; she accepts men as god made them; pitying the vicious, forgiving defects and absurdities, comprehending all ages, and vexed by nothing, because she has had the sense and tact to foresee all. tender and gay, she gratifies before she consoles. you love her so well that if this angel did wrong you would be ready to excuse her.

casey jones' unhappiness is obvious right from the book's first page. but it never once occurs to him that the reason he's so unhappy is that he's an asshole.

eunice was a flying demon.

1: rabbit season, duck season. who says you can't have both?

2: well, here's a toast: to rabbit season.

3: duck season.

2: i like rabbit season.

3: duck season.

4: you want a recount?

1: thinking about it.

2: load up!

[glasses clink]

if you think the harmony
is a little dark and out of key
you're correct, there's nobody there

there is a sense in which every day is groundhog day.
the same events recur, even if they may be clothed in new dress.
the same choices confront us, even though we think we've moved past them.
to a certain extent, the successes and failures of the day before may as well have never occurred.

but every day is an opportunity to arm oneself to defeat that repetition.
to grow into the person who lives in a different groundhog day.
one filled with glad recurrence.
in which the successes of today are the successes of tomorrow and the failures of yesterday are banished to distant nebulae.

every day is exactly the same.
that can be something to be cheered or dreaded.

on my sparkling cloud of snippets