Gettysburg vs. Vicksburg

I just finished Vicksburg: Grant’s Campaign that Broke the Confederacy by Donald L. Miller. Miller argues convincingly that Vicksburg was a more important victory than Gettysburg, though he doesn’t do a real comparison. I came up with some thoughts as to why Gettysburg is the battle everyone knows about and Vicksburg has been nearly forgotten.

Why was/is Gettysburg more celebrated than Vicksburg, despite Vicksburg being the more significant/important victory?

A     East vs. West

More “important” civilian populations were affected by Gettysburg.

B     North vs. South

Gettysburg was the only significant battle fought in the north (Winners) and brought the war more immediately to the northern civilians. (Who cares about the losers getting torn up?)

C     Lee vs. Grant – Can you say “élan”?

• Lee was dashing and loved by his men. (Sexy!)
• Grant was seemingly unimaginative and workmanlike. (Dull.)
• Lee became a traitor to support his home state’s rebellion. (Sexy!)
• Grant remained loyal to his oath and did his job because it was his job and needed doing. (Dull.)

D     Lee vs. Grant – Success vs. failure.

• Until Gettysburg, Lee rode a nearly unbroken string of successes.
• Until Vicksburg, Grant’s successes were unheralded and uninteresting.
• Gettysburg was the “high water mark” of the confederacy, the battle that marked the beginning of the end of the rebellion.
• While Vicksburg was among the low points of the confederacy, it was just one of the many victories necessary for the ultimate victory of the Union.

E     Abraham Lincoln – The Gettysburg Address

I don’t know enough about the cost in gold or lives to compare the two, but neither would seem sufficient reason for Gettysburg to be more celebrated than Vicksburg.

Breakfast with Father – Fixed ending

My dad claimed he worked his way through college as a short order cook. Considering the number of stories he told us growing up, it’s a mystery he never told us more than that bald fact. In fact, I don’t know it’s a fact. Mom never mentioned it, and they met and courted in college. There’s no one left to ask except my siblings, and their memories differ significantly from mine. I have no reason to think he was anything but truthful, but lacking corroborating details, I only have his claim.

And my memories of his cooking.

Dad loved mornings. He arose early during the school year. I don’t know who fixed his breakfast, but he and Mom were fed and coffeed before Dad woke the next generation.

As Dad mounted the first eight oak stairs to the second floor, he started bellowing, “Oh, what a bee-you-tee-full mooor-ning” in a bass rumble the neighbors could hear. The second line, “Oh, what a bee-you-tee-full daaaaay,” meant he had turned the landing and had only eight steps to the hall. For me, it meant time to burrow deeper under the covers.

Jodi occupied the room at the top of the stairs. Dad’s crooning stopped and everyone heard him encouraging Jodi to rise, order breakfast, and enjoy the day. She was no happier to get out of bed than the next person, but Dad could jolly a boulder out of the road. We heard Jo’s less than enthusiastic replies without understanding the words. When I heard her door close, I knew Devon and I were next.

Dad ambled down the hall while sharing his “wonderful feeling” that everything was going his way.

Devon, two years younger than me, arose uncomplainingly and ordered his breakfast. “Do we have Cap’n Crunch?”

“No Crunch Berries. Only Crunch.”

“I’ll have that,” Devon said.

I knew avoiding the world was impossible, but I pretended to be asleep. Dad went into his version of Old MacDonald. “Old McDaniel had a farm…” Soon anyone within a block knew the sorts of creatures I had on my farm. I groaned, crawled from under the covers, and pretended to awaken. “Morning already?” Dad dressed in his cooking clothes in the morning: an old sports shirt he couldn’t wear to school anymore, work khakis and slippers. Even though he was the most liberal of men, he wore a crewcut and was clean shaven through the 1960s. He wore whatever aftershave lotion he had received from Santa the previous Christmas which was usually Old Spice.

“Time for breakfast. What’s your order?”

“Two eggs, scrambled and toast.” Dad knew my preferences, but he asked anyway. Sometimes I had Cheerios.

After I made my selection, Dad closed our door and sneaked up on Darcy and Shari. The twins were our youngest and loved having their father’s undivided attention for a couple minutes. I couldn’t hear their selections, but twin giggling and Dad’s booming laugh came through loud and clear.

Dad never took notes but never got an order wrong. He ascribed that to his time as a short order cook during his college years.

Seven of us ate at the table every night. Dad made a rotating seating chart, so there were no fights about who sat where. Mom sat at the end nearest the kitchen. To her right was that week’s “hopper.” His job was to set the table and “hop up” and fetch things during the meal, so Mom didn’t have to. The near side of the table had one other seat so as not to crowd the hopper. It was closest to the living room and was the only place with a clear view of the television. The only problem with the near side of the table was the picture window on the far side. Whoever sat on the nearside squinted through breakfast.

The far side of the table had three seats: one at Mom’s left, one at Dad’s right and one in the middle. The middle seat was the least desirable for supper. Whoever sat there wedged between two other kids. At breakfast this was not a problem because we ate when and where we wanted at the table.

Jodi was the oldest. She watched The Today Show every morning, so she hurried to dress and get to the dining room first. Her western omelet, home made toast with orange marmalade, and Constant Comment tea would be waiting when she sat down. She had to pass through the kitchen and get her own silverware.

I came down next. I read every meal, so I didn’t want to face the window. Dad’s old college book rack did a poor job of holding books, but it conferred status. I got the book rack. A glass of cider waited near the rack in the middle of the far side. Dad let us know when he was coming with someone’s breakfast because he would burst into song. I was engrossed in my book and rarely heard the warning.

Dad moved my book aside when he brought my eggs and toast. In my haste, I never remembered to get utensils until after my breakfast was served, so with my place safe, my book in the rack, I scrambled to the kitchen for knife and fork.

Darcy sat in Mom’s place at the near end of the table. Shari sat around the corner to her right.  The twins looked out for each other, so both would grab table settings for both of them then sort things out later.

Dad swooped in with omelets that looked identical. “Ham and cheddar and onions?” he said. Darcy raised a hand and the plate spiraled on to the table in front of her. “Ham and Swiss and tomatoes.” Shari got a flying saucer landing, too. No matter how many omelets Dad cooked, each omelet reached the right customer.

Devon arrived last. He dawdled in the morning getting dressed, adjusting his collections, packing for school, whatever needed doing. Cereal eaters got their own bowls, boxes, and spoons. “Milk on the table?” Devon called from the kitchen. He knew it was there, but he liked to check.

“Milk is on the table,” Dad said, joined by a voice or two or three or four from the dining room affirming the milk’s location.

“I see it.”

“The pitcher’s almost empty.”

“Can you bring in the juice when you come?”

“Don’t forget the milk.” I liked to be helpful.

Reading the back of the box was the privilege of whomever ate the cereal. Cap’n Crunch boxes, among the best, carried tales of fighting pirates and hunting crunchberries. Devon at last joined the table.

All the while, Dad stumped back and forth to the kitchen for extra toast or another glass of juice. He conducted homework checks, lunch money checks, and instrument checks while sipping cup after cup of strong, black coffee. Sometimes he cooked bacon or scrapple. In the winter he offered oatmeal or cream of wheat. Once he even cooked grits.

Mom spent serving time upstairs preparing for school. She taught high school biology in a school thirteen miles away, so she left before the rest of us. When she came downstairs, she made a final washed-homeworked-financed-and-equipped check, then carried her bags out the door.

As soon as Jodi finished her breakfast, she took her dishes to the kitchen, grabbed her school bag and headed out the front door. That signaled to the rest of us it was time to leave. We sometimes jammed all five of us trying to put dishes in the dishwasher at the same time, getting jackets from the closet, clumping upstairs and down to get books, and bags and instruments, and heading to our favorite doors. The girls went out the front door, because…sidewalks. Devon and I headed out the back door because there were allies and short cuts between and behind houses, churches and the fire department. We walked together for a couple blocks then had to split as he went to the elementary school and I went to the junior high.

—–

The army turned me into a morning person, too. I wasn’t quite as enthusiastic as Dad had been, but I sang my kids out of bed, and cooked and served bacon or sausage, eggs or omelets, hot cereal or cold to my wife and kids.

As I tended bacon and sausage in a cast iron frying pan one morning, as a three-cheese omelet browned in my nine-inch non-stick pan, as an over easy egg hissed in my four inch nonstick pan, and as an English muffin, two slices of homemade bread and a garlic bagel browned in the toaster oven, my youngest stood at my elbow. She was in kindergarten and trying to decide between dental school and bakery school. She liked to help with breakfast. “How can you cook every different thing without burning anything and get it to the right person?” she asked.

“Grab a plate.” I picked her up and put an over easy egg on her plate along with a slice of bacon and half an English muffin. We rubbed noses and I told her, “Grandpa was a short order cook.”

My Commonplace Book

This is a collection of thoughts, ideas, snippets from books, movies and television shows that either I wish I had written or that I’d like to steal and use in my own writing someday

—–.

If you’re not living on the edge, you’re taking up too much room.

What’s the point of living on the edge if you don’t lean over a little?

Bog romping is out.

Retail therapy.

A friendly game of feel and tell.

If I wanted to talk, I would have worn underwear. 

Clean as a weasel.

A wolf in cheap clothing.

I’ve never seen a sight that didn’t look better looking back.

Looks like we have some serious mulling to do.

“If you need to hurry, you’re already too late.”

The books murmured to each other like a scandalized congregation of origami Presbyterians.

“When you’re young there’s plenty of time to get older. When you’re old, that’s all you’ll ever be.” Young to See (Song by Charlie Worsham)

“Cherish those who seek the truth, but beware of those who find it” by Voltaire.

Everything has happened somewhere.

I’m waiting until after the coronavirus to fill out the census.

You can tell a lot about a person by whether she brings the banana to her mouth or her mouth to the banana.

I’ve been learning how to make shadow puppets of all the vice presidents. So far I’m up to Jefferson.

I’ve shoveled stuff that looks better than you.

If you cannot speak truth during a beheading, when can you speak it?

I appreciated the complementary piece of gum under the seat.

My daughter wanted a Cinderella-themed party, so I invited her friends over and made them clean the house.

Grave marker: I came here without being consulted, and I’ll leave without my consent.

I don’t like to brag, but I’ve been avoiding people since long before the coronavirus.

Did anyone else have to submit a nude picture to the Admins to get accepted into this group?

If Bloomberg dropping half a billion dollars trying to buy the presidency isn’t evidence the one percent can fund the social programs the U.S. needs to survive without breaking a sweat, I don’t know what is.

I run like the winded. 

If I gave up sarcasm, interpretive dance would be my only means of communication.

Every family has that one weird relative. If you don’t know who it is, it’s probably you.

Sometimes I burn my bridges while I’m standing on them to let people know I’m serious about my crazy.

I like my books experienced: dog ear the pages, make notes in the margins, underline things, use them as coasters, share them with your friends and enemies, pummel the undead as necessary.

Pristine books are for bookstores. Real books are for backpacks.

I’ll bet the person who thought up “Jumping on the Band Wagon” was annoyed when other people started using it.

Any man fleeing from the police on a pirate ship, with three women, two children, and an orangutan, is a friend of mine.

The kiss of the evening breeze. 

The child is father to the man.

I told my minor kids to rob all the store they like. Since they’re underage, no one can watch the videos.

Only a woman who has delivered a baby without an epidural can understand a man with a cold.

I rarely make plans. Too easy for the word “premeditated” to creep into the courtroom.

Someone told me to cheer up, “Things could get worse.” I cheered up, and sure enough, things got worse.

Turn ons include a cow’s backside and the letter Y.

Autocorrect turned me into a homeless romantic.

It may be stormy, but it can’t rain forever.

God says the damnedest things.

Rule for a happy marriage: She can eat your fries. You cannot eat her fries.

Yeah, sex is great, but have you ever voted a republicker out of office?!

It’s AWESOME!

That hug was worth the rumple. 

When people tell me “You’re going to regret that in the morning,” I sleep until noon, because I am a problem solver.

You’re my rock, my paper and my scissors.

You have a bug on your collar. On you it looks great.

When you finally learn that a person’s behavior has more to do with his internal struggle than it ever had to do with you, you learn grace.

I’ll never be a billionaire, but there’s time to find out how to cook one.

Be the reason nuns clutch their rosaries.

Should I tell my parents that I’m adopted?

What is the circumference of a moose?

Death is closer than you think.

No word from the governor, so I guess it’s a go. 

I know the voices aren’t real, but man do they come up with some great ideas.

With each heartbeat, each breath, we push back the inevitable by one fleeting moment. To be alive is to know you will die.

My father was on his deathbed. My siblings were crying. I whispered in his ear, “Have a great adventure, Dad!”

I need a tax person who’s not afraid of prison.

I just want to feel wanted by someone other than the police.

My retirement plan hinges on having at least one successful kid.

I asked the librarian, “Where are the books on paranoia?

She whispered, “They’re right behind you.”

Evangelical Leaders Ask Trump Which One Of Them Will Betray Him During Impeachment Proceedings

Until the cows freeze over.

Not the sharpest egg in the drawer.

If I ever use “there,” “they’re” or “their” incorrectly in a post, I’ve been kidnapped and I’m signaling for help.

Never make a threat you don’t intend to carry out.

Rage and phrenzy will pull down more in half an hour than prudence, deliberation, and foresight can build up in a hundred years.

Good or bad, we seldom deserve what life gives us.

Only dead men don’t care.

Never call a small man in uniform “Shorty.”

Just because you say it was conviction doesn’t mean it’s true.

Your skull will make quite a trophy for father.

Sometimes you meet someone and know, from the first moment, you want to spend the rest of your life without them.

I went to the Improv last night and saw the shortest Beckett play on record when the first line was, “Hello Godot. What are you doing here?”

Forget walking a mile in my shoes. Try thirty seconds in my head.

Sometimes loneliness makes the loudest noise.

Fucktangular – A situation that is complicated and messy in multiple unpleasant and difficult ways. (See Fucktacular) (My spell check recognized Fucktangular. Did I do that?)

One minute you’re young and the next you’re turning down the stereo in your car to see better.

Yesterday was the last day of the rest of my life.

He pitches her off the balcony into the sweet bye and bye.

I don’t make things complicated. Things get complicated all on their own.

Canada reports hits on ImmigrateCanada.com dropped by 71 percent the day after the House voted for the Articles of Impeachment. (If it wasn’t true, I wouldn’t have made it up.)

Elevator music bothers me on so many levels.

Sleeping on the couch makes me feel manly, like I’m camping, with a really angry bear nearby.

I drink coffee for your protection.

You’ve got to hand it to short people, especially stuff on the top shelves.

As I get older and remember all the people I’ve lost, I think to myself, “Maybe a career as a tour guide wasn’t for me.”

I don’t understand stupid people. Maybe I should take one apart to see how it works?

Dogs prepare folks for babies. Cats prepare folks for teenagers.

Apparently it’s not appropriate to refer to kids as “little fuckers” at a PTA meeting. Who knew?

If a global supernatural genocide isn’t an obvious demonstration of unconditional love, then I don’t know what is.

Home is where you go to heal.

If you spend your life looking for happiness you’ll probably be disappointed. Instead, do what makes you like, and happiness will find you.

If we understood the spirit that moves all things, we would not call it the Great Mystery.

My wife buys me “Get better soon.” cards even when I’m not sick.

We were just on our way to get our chin-horns waxed.

The world is full of people we can never understand.

Popular as a pinecone suppository.

I was alone in an elevator when a woman got on, pressed the button for the lobby, and said, “I love you.”

Wishing not to seem rude, I said, “Thanks, but I’m married.”

She glared at me and pointed to her bluetooth headphones.

Sometimes you meet someone and you know from the first moment you want to spend your whole life without them.

If you shout, “Hey, Tom, it’s been ages. How are you?” at strangers in the street, you will occasionally be right. Those times are worth it.

If you’re walking on thin ice anyway, you might as well dance.

Does a chicken have lips?

“God” is not an explanation. It is a place holder for those lacking the courage or the intellectual honesty to say, “I don’t know.”

However much you paid for tea the price is to steep.

Movie stars playing musical genitalia.

No antidote required.

I love that we, as a nation, set aside one day per year to gather in our living rooms to honor superb owls.

One of my students told me his ear hurt. I asked, “Inside or outside?” and he walked out of my classroom. 

A minute later he shouted through the window, “Both.”

I retired six weeks later.

Why don’t FEMALES and TAMALES rhyme?

You know what this tired mom and her sleeping newborn could use right now? A drum solo.

Socialism isn’t free stuff. It’s getting what you paid for with your taxes rather than giving it away to corporate subsides.

In a survival situation, can I consider vegans organic, free-range and grass fed?

When you’re dead, you don’t know you’re dead. The pain is only felt by others. The same thing happens when you’re stupid.

Warning: You have violated a rule we have not made up yet.

I want to be 14 again and ruin my life differently. I have new ideas.

It’s no good searching for something with your good eye closed.

Let’s lodge with my fleas in the hills. I mean, let’s flee to my lodge in the hills. Groucho

Conservatives using new testament

Everyone is debating Merry Impeachment vs. Happy Impeachment. I’m going non-denominational with Treason’s Greetings.

Gently approach the desk, state your problem, then back away and leave. That way no one gets hurt.

The Four Norsemen of the Apocalypse.

Fonzie schemes. 

It’s a revolution, damn it. We’r going to have to offend someone. – 1776

The People shouldn’t be afraid of their government.

It’s important to know when to stop arguing with people and let them be wrong.

Morally incontinent.

Whatever I can to stave off the chaos mayhem and self-interest that lies just beneath our civil disguise. – West Wing

Flat globes

He took my wax statue of Fess Parker.

If you aren’t someone the church would have killed 400 years ago, you aren’t really trying.

In the service of a vengeful God.

Heck is where people go who don’t believe in gosh.

A yawn is a silent scream for coffee.

Since the Universe conspired to help me find you, we are a team until the Universe dies. 

She was the kind of girl who got four drinks out of a fifth of bourbon.

She was dressed fit to kill. The result was manslaughter.

I tried to pay for lunch with a fifty dollar bill. The waitress said, “We’ve had problems with counterfeiters. Do you have anything smaller?”

I handed her a thirty dollar bill and said, “Keep the change.”

No one on News for Dumb FUX would call tronald dump stupid, but when the asked him to spell “Orange,” and he asked, “The color or the fruit?” they were tempted.

Built to wear sweaters.

You use your tongue prettier than a $20 whore.

Beautiful as an angel in hell.

Hot as a blow torch but much more interesting.

He walked without direction or purpose, without plan or thought. His companions were Frustration and Rage, and together the three of them stalked Manhattan.

Absurdity lurks everywhere.

Everything is temporary.

At any street corner, the feeling of absurdity can strike any man in the face.

If this isn’t art, then what is it?

If this isn’t art, then what is?

If this isn’t art, then what?

Everything happens for a reason. Sometimes that reason is you’re stupid and make bad decisions.

One time I got cloned and didn’t know which one of me was real.

Life is what’s next. 

Two days later I didn’t hailed a lot of cigarette smoke, nursed a bunch of beers, and watched a lot of naked girls my mom visit to the gynecologist.

We are all born screaming.

Bio Organic Gel With A Steady Hold – BOGWASH

Bogroll

Too famous to live long.

Seasoned with industrial phlegm.

Let’s set the night on fire!

The Williamsport Psychic Association is having a meeting. You know when and where.

You could make a good dog break his leash.

A good alpaca is a lifetime investment.

He applied the Heimlich maneuver with ferocity here too for unknown to mankind.

Impeachment is like a family reunion. If it’s sexy something has gone horribly wrong.

I stood next to death, and people liked him better.

All your base are belong to us.

My life is better than your vacation.

Women left their purses and panties and shit in my car. 

I’d buy you a parachute if I thought it wouldn’t open. 

Nothing worse than left-handed moths. 

Do you mind if I rent you out as a decoy for duck hunters?

Where was I on the night of June 7?

I can get by without you. I got by without your father didn’t I? And without your grandfather. If I were a man you’d resent that.

Stay calm! Be brave! Wait for the signs!

I can look past most flaws.

 – Emotionally distant? Okay.

 – Slight drinking problem? Fine.

 – Killed a man due to circumstances you can’t talk about? Whatever.

But saying “I seen” instead of “I saw” is something I won’t and can’t tolerate.

The world is filled with things you don’t know.

The first time you read it for the story.

I keep writing and rewriting re-thinking revising and editing it became my grieving process/Ceremony.

The coach and the other players wanted me to be good. They needed me to be good. They expected me to be good. So I became good.

Because they expected more of me. I expected more of myself.

Honesty may not get you lots of friends, but it’ll always get you the right friends.

The pain of lost faith is never suffered as intensely by the one who lost it as by the friends who have not lost it. 

If they’re shooting at you, you know you’re doing something right.

Pardon me while I have a strange interlude.

When there’s an unidentified corpse in the morgue, I check it out to make sure it’s not me. So far, so good.

I’ve got to be me, even when (even though) it pisses people off.

It’s been a long week. Today I’m skipping my meds to stir things up a bit.

If he were any more of a plant, we’d be watering him twice a week.

If you can’t read this, thank a republican.

It’s only murder if they find the body. Otherwise it’s just a missing person. Just saying.

I showed my Facebook page to my psychiatrist. She wants to talk to all of you.

 Do more things that make you forget to check your phone.

I shuffled off toward the statistical improbability of dying in an airplane crash. – Don’t Point That Thing at me, Kyril Bonfiglioli

When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced. Live your life so that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice. Cherokee aphorism

A winsome smile

Trampled by turtles.

GOD IS NOWHERE.

Fine as turtle fur. 

What did the white rabbit know?

We’re all slowly dying. From the moment of birth, life is about finding ways to distract ourselves from an inevitable death. As we march slowly toward the grave, the only thing we can do is look the other way while the Grim Reaper approaches.

If you have to shoot, shoot. Don’t talk.

Every gun makes its own tune.

D.O.P.E. Department of Paranormal Events/Experiences

Pain is like depression. When you feel it you know you’re alive.

Hope can be a shiny object to distract you from an unpleasant truth.

Useful as a chocolate watch.

Life is about making mistakes. Death is about wishing you made a lot more. The Bounty Hunter

Everyone leaves unfinished business. That’s what dying is. The Expanse, episode 313.

Enough to make you wake up screaming from the American dream.

Show us your wits.

“In the name of jesus I extinguish these tiny wax penises.”

A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing. GBS

Better dangerous freedom than peaceful slavery. 

Silence is the only thing you always hear.

The world is what you make of it friend. If it doesn’t fit, you make alterations. Silverado

The coffee tasted as if it had been made from a hobo’s whiskers.

The doorman appeared wearing a shiny uniform and a mustache full of soup.

I was born for the storm. The calm does not suit me. Andrew Jackson – Attributed

In my world, double negatives are a big no-no.

I’ll tell you what’s wrong with society. No one drinks from the skulls of their enemy anymore.

Watching tronald dump rewrite history, with misspellings and no punctuation, brings a tear to my eye.

No security system is a match for a stupid employee.

He was suffering from the nothing-to-do, out-of-town blues. Hidden Prey, John Sandford

Lies are the only things we tell ourselves that we truly believe. 

The opportunity makes the thief.

Orphans make the best assassins. The Intern’s Handbook – Shane Kuhn

The shortest distance between truth and bullshit is 6 feet straight down. The Intern’s Handbook – Shane Kuhn (I think.)

My mother loved my wife. She introduced us as. “My daughter-in-law and her husband.”

There are not many physical threats that cannot be countered with a decent hammer. The girl who played with fire, Stieg Larsson

Flying at the speed of war.

Consider this fair warning. 

No one can throw a bigger tantrum than a narcissist who’s losing control of someone else’s mind.

I feel more like I do now than I ever have before.

It’s barely home when you’re not here.

You are free to choose, but you are not free from the consequences of your choice.

The struggle is over. Chaos has won.

Armageddon was yesterday. Today we have a serious problem.

The days of people using proper English is went.

Face like a blind carpenter’s thumb

Do one thing each day to get you closer to your dream.

I don’t have to be sarcastic, but reality has given me a lot to work with. I hate to be wasteful.

My crosseyed friend lost her job teaching because she could not control her pupils.

I don’t have to be sarcastic, but reality has given me a lot to work with. I hate to seem ungrateful.

Animals – food in the primary state

Neglect of mathematics works injury to all knowledge, since one who is ignorant of it cannot know the other sciences or the things of this world. What is worse, those who are thus ignorant are unable to perceive their own ignorance and so do not seek a remedy. The Calculus Diaries, Jennifer Ouellette

My sarcasm is always sincere.

I do all my own stunts, usually not on purpose.

I am fluent in three languages: English, profanity and sarcasm.

Someone has to speak for the people with no voices 

The hard of thinking.

I, State Your Name, pending the discovery of a deity whose existence withstands rational debate, swear by the temporary precepts of a self-derived moral system to speak the truth as I know it.

Surplus to requirements

When someone says you can’t do something, do it twice and take pictures.

Bigfoot is real. Apex predators, species at the top of the food chain, have the smallest numbers and move in the tiniest packs. Could there be an apex primate…

House of negotiable hospitality – Whore house

He tried to get up, skidded on some cow’s moment of crisis, and sat down on a sheep. – Feet of Clay,  Terry Pratchett

He had a face like a blind carpenter’s thumb.

He was sore as a blind carpenter’s thumb.

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan 

A stately pleasure-dome decree: 

Where Alph, the sacred river, ran 

Through caverns measureless to man 

   Down to a sunless sea.

Kubla Khan

by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Why can’t we use thoughts and prayers to protect our borders? They’re good enough for our schools.

I can’t fix stupid, but the hats make it easier to identify.

Newsroom: Journalism – Speaking truth to stupid.

Newsroom: I’m too old to be governed by fear of dumb people.

I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat and snicker.

Those who abjure (renounce) violence can do so only because others are committing violence on their behalf. — George Orwell?

Ineffable are the ways of gods.

When you realize how perfect everything is, you will tilt your head back and laugh at the sky.

The people who guard the rainbow don’t like those who get in the way of the sun. Going Postal, Pratchett, Terry

Sometimes late at night I dig a hole in the backyard to keep the neighbors guessing.

I found a body in my trunk this morning. I distinctly remember leaving two there last night.

There’s a lot of brown clothing in this world. 

The game is on and the nuts are free.

Tradition is just peer pressure from dead people. 

Before you start with me, you need to ask yourself, did he take his medication today?

No amount of evidence will ever persuade an idiot. Mark Twain

Ask me about my vow of silence.

A simple test of the relative merits of science and religion is to compare lighting your house at night by prayer or electricity.

Music beyond distant hills

We’re surrounded. That simplifies our problem. 

Waxing wroth.

That is one of my pet peas.

“Read, read, read. Read everything—trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it.” – William Faulkner

The hard of thinking.

“I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time.” – Pascal

“A house of negotiable affection” Going.Postal

There are two rules for success.

1 – Never reveal everything you know. 

You look like a fireplace on a cold night: warm, inviting and with a hint of danger.

The United States will not be making yardsticks any longer.

I’m working my way through reform school selling subscriptions to defunct magazines. 

Have you considered the possibility that the anti-vaccination propaganda is an attempt by the Russians or the Chinese to weaken the health of the American people?

I told my therapist about my family and friends. She said it was a miracle I’m as normal as I am.

Each time I finish a session I can hear my therapist calling her therapist. 

I have always believed in 5 a.m., just as I have always believed in yetis, the Loch Ness monster and gods. I hoped never to have to confront any of them face-to-face. My insomnia has convinced me that 5 a.m. does exist and gods don’t. I’m still on the fence about the other two.

Magazines for sad people 

I had a dream that I had amnesia. When I woke up, I couldn’t remember what it was about.

Try not to make the wrong mistake.

Are ostriches happy?

I am still haunted by the things I did for a Klondike Bar.

I got a ton of procrastinating done today.

Losing weight doesn’t seem to be working. From now on I’m going to focus on getting taller.

Never compliment a woman on her mustache no matter how impressive it is.

Illusion is nearly all we have.

Weirder than square eggs.

Your first mistake was to assume I’d be one of the sheep.

Do you know why there are religious holidays but no science holidays? Science always works.

Science and religion are compatible. For example, you need science to build a bomb, but you need religion to set it off.

Life is decay

You are expendable.

You are always alone.

Nothing happens for a reason.

You’re going to die and be forgotten.

The 7.6 billion people on earth will never know you existed.

Keep on plugging.

If you love the idea that LeBron James is a pseudo detective on the starship Haven’t-We-Heard-This-Story-In-One-Form-Or-Another and you have no respect for your free time this is your book. —Review of The Ark by Patrick Tomlinson

Why do so many Alabamans look as if their parents were brother and sister?

My afternoon would have been more productively spent boiling a cauldron of giraffe hair.

I’ve had it up to here with midgets.

If you see any bauxite deposits, ask the owner if she is interested in selling and ask how much, please?

Wish I was here.

They said it couldn’t be done, so I didn’t do it.

Schrödinger did it for the pussy.

This is clearly ambiguous. 

I can’t. I have gymnastics. 

I am not a duck. 

This shirt is only blue when I think about tits. 

I support balloon animal rights. 

I have six words for you. 

I’m from the future. Pretzels. That’s all I’ll say. 

I enjoy entertainment. 

I ❤️ love redundancy. 

My worst decision is yet to come. 

“Is it true, Dad, that in some countries men don’t know who their wives are until they get married?

“That’s true in every country, son.”

Too old to die young.

I got kicked out of the hospital. Apparently “Stroke Patients Here” doesn’t mean what I thought it meant.

A recent study found that women who carry a little extra weight live longer than the men who mention it.

People are shocked when they find out I’m not an electrician.

Direction is more important than speed. There’s no use going nowhere fast. 

Turns out a bunch of seventy-year-old white guys may not be the best steering committee for humanity. Who knew.

I wanted to donate blood, but they asked way too many questions. Like, “Whose blood is this?” and “How did you get it?”

Paranoid hypochondriac. Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid

If your path demands you walk through hell, walk as if you own the place. 

It’s not possible to ban abortion. It’s only possible to ban safe and legal abortion.

If the phone doesn’t ring, it’s Me

Nudity – The one costume that’s in fashion anywhere. – Night Watch

What’s the difference between an atheist and an Evangelical Christian? An atheist is honest about not really following Christ.

Ride the lightning. 

Dance the hemp fandango. 

Coffin dodgers. 

Phoebe Buffay – The way to quit smoking is to dance naked in a field of heather and then bathe in the sweat of six healthy young men.

Oh dark Mother, once again I suckle at your smoky teat. Friends, The one with the hypnotism tape

I’m getting too old the be dragging bodies into shallow graves.

The House of Pain

The House of Questions.

Tower of Change

Tower of Chains

My life sped up on November 9, 2016. I’m now living at three WTFs per hour.

I don’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead. – Mark Twain

I don’t have the patience to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead. – Me

How am I supposed to trust you when you keep running away when I untie you?

If it weren’t for sarcasm, how would I express myself in a nonthreatening manner?

If anyone is interested, I’ll be signing books tomorrow at Barnes & Noble until around noon, or until I’m escorted out by security.

I knew something was wrong. My finger nails didn’t grow at all yesterday.

I told a tronald dump supporter that roughly 30 percent of Americans are bad at math. He said, “I must be part of the other 30 percent.”

You wouldn’t worry so much about what others think of you if you realized how seldom they do.

My students have unprotected sex, but every one has a case on his or her cell phone.

Coffee “filtered through the finest Skid Row hankies, we get a brew so thin you’d think it’s tea.’ Friends, Giant poking device

In the age of trump, grammar is a form of resistance.

I was forged in the bowels of hell to torture the guilty for all eternity. Mazikeen, television show Lucifer

Too often born-again people make everyone else wish they’d never been born at all.

Delusions of grandeur make me feel a lot better about myself.

You had me at “We’ll make it look like an accident.”

The past is never dead. It’s not even past. – William Faulkner

Laughter is courage in the face of disaster.

Off is the direction in which you can fuck. 

Mainstream commercial nihilism can’t be trusted.

Voting Republican is treason. Not voting is desertion.

It’s not my looks that reveal my age. It’s my use of complete sentences and properly spelled words when I text.

Let’s get rid of the electoral college.

It gave us W.

It gave us T.

What the F is next?

Only false gods are laughed off their pedestals. Agnes Repplier

Laughter springs from the lawless part of our nature. Agnes Repplier

He’s funny, but I wouldn’t want to be there when the laughter stops. 

I recently became a christian scientist. It was the only healthcare plan I could afford.

I am here against my better judgment.

I am writing this against my better judgement.

Faith – The purposeful suspension of critical thinking.

Bring me giants. – Cyrano de Bergerac

Grammar is resistance in the era of drumpf

A clown waits for you in your house softly whistling..

Critical thinking is to a liberal education as faith is to religion. The converse is also true. Faith is to a liberal education as critical thinking is to religion: irrelevant and even damaging. 

Don’t worry about old age. It doesn’t last long.

Sprinkle glitter on my grave.

No country that ignores reality and discounts history and science can honestly call itself free.

The road to freedom has always been stalked by death. 💀

My favorite part of Groundhog Day is the leftovers.

Windmill cancer survivor.

The essence of America is finding and maintaining a balance between freedom “to” and freedom “from.”

Don’t stand there like a spare tit.

My favorite bibble verse: Lunch 11:35. 

When Jesus is born I get presents. When Jesus dies I get chocolate. What’s not to love about Jesus?

My therapist told me to write letters to the people I hate then burn them. She didn’t say when I was supposed to do with the letters.

If you’re going to be irreplaceable, you have to be different.

We’re all the same age inside.

WYDYD – When you die, you die.

There’s gonna be a party when the wolf comes home.

My students don’t care that I walked five miles to school every day.

When we are laughing, we are less afraid.

We are not a fearful people.

I like to confuse my doctor by putting on rubber gloves whenever she does.

I told my therapist, “Houses are just containers, and we are god’s leftovers.”

She said, “There isn’t enough room for two in this bathtub.”

Do you think god hides in heaven because he, too, fears what he’s created?

Owning dogs is for people who never want to eat a whole sandwich by themselves again.

A clown waits for you in your house softly whistling.

Scientists read thousands of books and still have questions. Religious wackos carry one book around and think they know all the answers.

Find a boy who looks at you as if you were the most beautiful demon he’s ever seen. 

Football is a violent ground acquisition game which is in fact a crypto fascist metaphor for nuclear war.

When you meet someone who doesn’t understand Star Trek, refer to the prime directive. Do not interfere with primitive cultures.

Today I saw two girls holding their friend’s hair back because it was windy and she was eating a doughnut. Men never support each other like that.

When you wish upon a star, you’re actually 1 million years too late. That star is dead. Just like your dreams.

People have lost the spirit of the Ides of March. It’s not just stabbing. It’s coming together to stab in groups.

Born to Be Posthumous

An invisible man married an invisible woman. Their kids were nothing to look at either.

People are giving up stuff for Lent. I am going to continue atheist-ing.

Water solves all problems.

 – Want to lose weight? Drink water.

 – Dirty face? Wash with water.

 – Annoying stranger? Hold under water.

I’m looking for the fountain of middle-age.

My girlfriend gives great headache.

The French writer Colette said, “Our perfect companions never have less than four feet,” but I always thought anything more than eight inches was ostentatious.

Adam and evil.

I tried to donate blood today, but they asked too many questions. Whose blood is this? Where did you get it? Why is it in a bucket?

When my wife yelled at me that I had no sense of direction, I packed my bags and right.

The first time I heard sperm referred to as “high fructose porn syrup,” my life changed for the worse.

When something good happens, travel to celebrate.

If something bad happens, travel to forget.

If nothing happens, travel to make something happen.

Labor contractions – Birthquakes

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” 

― H. Jackson Brown Jr., P.S. I Love You

Interesting that tronald dump didn’t call Cohen a liar. He called Cohen a rat. A rat is someone who told a truth he shouldn’t have. 

I had my psychology class in stitches yesterday when I told them about the stupidity of Pavlov’s dogs. Then the bell rang and we had lunch.

The sister of misfortune is hope.

I told my student to “Cheer up. Things could be worse. You could be in a deep hole full of water.” I hope she knew I meant well.

I had a scarecrow who was outstanding in my field.

March is not supposed to alternate between fine spring weather and the arctic apocalypse.

I introduced my girlfriend to my mother. Mom said, “You don’t have to settle for this. You deserve better.”

I said, “But mom, I love…”

Mom said, “I’m talking to her.”

Saying tronald dump spoiled the republicker party is like saying the mayonnaise spoiled the pickle-and-shit sandwich.

When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him. – Jonathan Swift, Thoughts on Various Subjects, Moral and Diverting

If you want something you never had, you have to do something you’ve never done. Maybe stab a guy, take his boat.

I see you made bail. Congratulations.

It was a great first date. She buttered both sides of my bread, if you know what I mean.

“Looks can be this evening.”

It’s depressing how little frolicking I get to do. I was born to frolic!

I got fired from my job with Toyota. I was showing a car to a customer. She said, “Cargo space?” I said, “No. Car not go space. No car do that.

I took Viagra with my iron supplements. For four hours I could only face North. 

If you could read my mind, you’d thank me and ask for a cigarette.

I bought a student a “Get better soon” card. He’s not sick. He just needs to get better.

I married my wife for her looks, but not the ones she’s giving me right now.

One of my students asked what a hoedown was. I told him it was like a shindig but with more girls. He didn’t look convinced. I said, “You know, it’s not a big as a hootenanny, but it’s green.” Then his face went all cattywampus.

People are always talking about the need for silence.

I’m starting to get tired of not being a billionaire.

If I were a plastic surgeon, I’d put a squeaky toy in every breast implant.

I asked a friend if her family in Tijuana was upset about the wall. She said, “Yes, but they’ll get over it.”

When aliens fly past the earth, I bet they lock their doors.

Abstinence makes the church grow fondlers.

Unicycle wheelie champion.

Women have renamed “mansplaining” to “correctile dysfunction.”

When people text me “plz” because it’s shorter than “please, I respond, “No.” because it’s shorter than “Yes.”

I advise against faking sarcasm.

I’m not self-medicating with chocolate. The woman at the shop wrote me a prescription. She just “called it” a recipe.

I know three people who are clinically insane. I’m two of them.

People need nature. Nature doesn’t need people.

The devil whispered, “I’m coming for you.” I whispered back, “Bring pizza.”

If you’re wrong and you shut up, you’re wise. If you’re right and you shut up, you’re married.

I asked the librarian where to find books on paranoia. She whispered, “They’re right behind you.”

Please don’t confuse your Google search with my medical degree.

I have been married long enough to know that “Keep talking” means it’s time to shut up.

Word to the wise: Saying “There, there little girl” to an angry biker makes things worse.

To the guy who invented zero, I say, “Thanks for nothing.”

A baby’s laughter is one of the most beautiful sounds you will ever hear, unless it’s 3 a.m. and you’re home alone and you don’t have a baby.

I don’t always learn my lesson, but when I do, you can bet it was the hard way.

I was going to tell a time traveling joke, but no one thought it was funny.

All dogs are therapy dogs. Most are freelancing.

Gravity holds billions of tons of water to the earth but doesn’t squash a tiny bug? How does that work?

When The Boss told me to stop imitating a flamingo, I had to put my foot down!

Sometimes I feel as if my body’s “Check Engine” light has been on for the last thousand miles.

I’m grateful that thoughts don’t appear in bubbles above our head.

I run like the winded.

I keep a vial in my pocket. When a religious wacko says something stupid, I waft a cloud of glitter in a Baptism of Stupid.

Birds born in a cage think flying is an illness.

I know the voices aren’t real, but man do they come up with some great ideas.

I can tell if people are judgmental just by looking at them.

Every woman dreams that a man will take her into his arms, throw her into bed and clean the whole house while she sleeps.

The fastest animal known to man is a toddler who’s just been asked, “What’s that in your mouth?”

Unnecessary enthusiasm. Unnecessarily enthusiastic. Too clever by half. 

Those who say it cannot be done shouldn’t interrupt those who are doing it.

The little things are the big things.

I threw my girlfriend a surprise bukkake party. Everyone came. You shoulda seen the look on her face

I told my psychiatrist I was hearing voices. She told me I don’t have a psychiatrist.

When I die, I want my remains scattered at Disney World. Not cremated, just scattered. 

My driving test was going fine until I picked up those hitchhikers by the prison.

The Maze is so small that most people get lost looking for it. 

A successful marriage ends with one spouse watching the other die.

There is probably a tree somewhere out there now that is growing the wood for your coffin.

I sleep better naked. Why can’t the flight attendants understand that?

Thousands of my potential children died on your daughter’s face last night.

The two most important days in your life are the day you were born and the day you find out why. Mark twain

When I’m asked to guess someone’s “Spirit Animal,” I always guess, “Jackass?” Making friends is hard.

My life can be summed up in one sentence: It didn’t go as planned.

Waffles are just pancakes that are ribbed for her pleasure.

New Years exacerbates my Old L’anxiety.

“Running amok” was an officially recognized medical condition in 1849.

The last thing I want to do is hurt you, but it’s still on my list.

Your life is made of two dates and a dash. Make the most of the dash.

If I agreed with you, we’d both be wrong.

I didn’t say it was your fault, I said I was blaming you.

Everyone complains about the weather but no one wants to sacrifice a virgin to change it.

I enrolled in an origami class. My reasons were twofold…

I walked out the third time the therapist said, “Holy shit!”

If you’re going to rattle my cage, you best be sure I’m securely locked inside.

If you’re going to yank my chain, you best be sure I’m securely bound by it.

Don’t vacuum wearing headphones. I finished the whole house before I noticed the damned vacuum wasn’t working.

The day you decide not to question what you believe is the day you start making excuses for why you believe it.

One day you’ll search for me in everyone you meet, but you won’t find me. I promise you.

Americans are getting stronger. Twenty years ago it took two adults to carry ten dollars worth of groceries. Now a five-year-old can do it.

I think I’m addicted to placebos. I’d give them up, but it wouldn’t make any difference.

Don’t turn down the light. I’m afraid to go home in the dark. — O. Henry, 1910

Please don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me. — Chris Farley, 1997

Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted. — Martin Luther King, Jr.

I thought the dryer made my clothes shrink. Turns out it was the refrigerator.

Build a man a fire and he’ll be warm for a day, but set a man on fire and he’ll be warm for the rest of his life.

I was sitting alone on a park bench when an old man asked if he could sit down. I jumped up and demanded, “You can see me?”

Dear Jesus. If you paid for our sins by dying for 3 days, why would you punish nonbelievers with eternal damnation in hell? Shouldn’t we also get 3 days of death instead?

Fair is fair.

I pity the man who wants a coat so cheap that the man who produces the cloth will starve in the process. — Benjamin Harrison

You cannot stop the spread of an idea by passing a law against it. — Harry S. Truman

The intelligence of a crowd is the square root of the number of people in it. — Terry Pratchett, Jingo

One of the universal rules of happiness is: always be wary of any helpful item that weighs less than its operating manual. — Terry Pratchett, Jingo

tronald dump is loyal to his staff, not because he cares. He hates having to learn new names.

tronald dump doesn’t fully understand immigration. A reporter asked him about amnesty. Dump said, “It’s horrible when anyone lose their memory.”

Congress passed some new tougher regulations. For example, when the NRA buys a senator they have to get a receipt.

My wife says that in all the years she’s known me, we’ve never had an argument serious enough to consider divorce. Murder, yes, but never divorce. 

Half of life is messing up. The other half is dealing with it.

It’s never too late to be what you might have been.

Music can’t change anything. If it could, it already would have.

When a stranger talks to me, I whisper, “You can see me?”

When I leave a fancy restaurant, I tell my wife in a loud voice, “The squirrel was delicious.”

I don’t get no respect. One time I got hurt. On the way to the hospital, the ambulance stopped for gas. 

It’s frustrating to live in a world that reveres smart machines but disdains smart people.

Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stranger.

My students asked my wife, “Why did you marry him?”

She said, “Because he’s funny.”

I said, “I thought it was because I was good in bed.”

She said, “See? He’s hilarious.”

My office is a fine place for full-moon werewolf transformations. Parks and Recreation

I want to die like my Grandfather, peacefully, in my sleep; not screaming in terror like the passengers on his bus.

My father was an alcoholic circus clown who used to beat me with his oversized shoes.

When the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe. Thomas Jefferson

Benjamin Franklin — ‘It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority.

If you call one wolf, you invite the pack. Bulgaria

We in America do not have government by the majority. We have government by the majority who participate. Thomas Jefferson

The nectar of a thousand sorrows. Parks and Recreation, e46

War is delightful to those who have not experienced it. Desiderius Erasmus

My mother told me I wouldn’t amount to anything because I procrastinated. I said, “Just wait!”

I wanted to be a teacher, and for my sins, I was assigned here.

I do not know which was harder to bear: the echo of her passing or the long silence that followed.

When it’s 3 o’clock in New York City, it’s still 1860 in Alabama.

If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we would have considered it an act of war.

The one function TV news performs very well is that when there is no news we give it to you with the same emphasis as if there were. David Brinkley

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.

??? “A soul mate’s purpose is to shake you up, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light can get in, make you so desperate and out of control that you have to transform your life.” ???

There is no housing shortage in America today. That’s just a rumor started by people who have nowhere to live. Candidate Trump

The show must go wrong.

Life is full of obstacle illusion’s.

Reverse psychiatry.

Women don’t wanna hear man’s thoughts. Women want to hear their thoughts in a deeper voice.

Democracy Dies in Darkness

Write

Edit

Publish

Repeat

The Flashlight

Journalism will kill you, but it will keep you alive while you are at it. – Horace Greeley

I told my psychiatrist that I’ve been hearing voices. She told me I don’t have a psychiatrist.

Everything you’ve done, everything you’ve seen, everything you’ve become, remains. You never can go back, only forward, and if you don’t bring the whole of yourself with you, you’ll never see the sun again. From Only Forward by Michael Marshall Smith

The department of doing things especially quickly.

Undersecretary of really hustling things along.

The Department of Things that need Doing.

The vice president in charge of sorting things out.

The bureau of things that are just as important.

The chairman of productive and diligent meetings.

The office of really getting to the heart of things.

The Results are What Counts Department

The Chair of This is More Important than That. 

Department of Potentially Entertaining Filth.

Department of Really Getting to the Heart of Things.

Minister of Small Fountains 

The Department of Post Mortem Communications 

You have to do your own growing no matter how tall your grandfather was.

Writing’s show business for shy people. Lee Child

Be so good they can’t ignore you. 

I want to die like my Grandfather, peacefully, in my sleep; not screaming in terror like the passengers on his bus.

I believe in you. (I also believe in Bigfoot, so don’t get too excited.)

Sometimes I think people only like me because I’m awesome. 

Great things never come from comfort zones.

Here’s to meeting new people and telling old secrets.

Hate causes a lot of problems. So far it hasn’t solved any.

There are all kinds of love in this world, but never the same love twice. F Scott Fitzgerald

Don’t be humble. You’re not that great. Golda Meir

Life is all about Plan B.

Halloween is coming and I still have no idea what I’m going to be for the rest of my life.

Day two of eating healthy. Look awesome again.

Exercise would be more rewarding if calories screamed while you burn them.

Dream big enough to frighten yourself, but don’t let the fear stop you.

It’s a hell of a thing, killing’ a man. You take away all he’s got and all he’s ever gonna have. – Unforgiven

My goal is to lose 10 pounds this year. 15 more to go.

Endzeit – End times (German)

U

Look where it is and you’ll find it.

Our conversations with other entities have led to a maturing of supra-sentient consciousness. – New Age Bullshit generator http://sebpearce.com/bullshit/

To keep the magic alive, you need to learn new tricks.

Opportunity knocks but once. Temptation leans on the damned bell.

If I was a dog, I would lick your face right now.

Do one thing every day that scares your family

You have a smile that could light up a psych ward.

Warning: Oral sex is everywhere. It may be happening right under your nose!

What do the people who type “K” instead of “OK” do with all the time they save?

When I die, I would like the people I did group projects with to lower me into my grave so they can let me down one last time.

Tell your Momma what you want and she’ll tell you how to get along without it.

Never confuse motion with progress.

Walking Lord Shelton is not a weird sex act.

I think I’ve been seizing the wrong day.

Calm seas don’t make great sailors. 

No secrets in the house of pain. 

In a fallen world, even perfection is flawed.

There’s gonna be a party when the wolf comes home.

Join us as we dance madly on the lip of the volcano.

They’re dangerous at both ends and… crafty in the middle. Why would I want anything with a mind of its own bobbing about between my legs?

The secret of command lies largely in giving orders that are apt to be obeyed.

The peoples democratic republic of Williamsport.

Open guitar surgery.

Dancing naked in the ruins.

The gods rarely take note of fools.

Embrace the sands of time.

Resist: If we fight, we might lose. If we don’t fight, we’ve already lost.

The truth fears no questions.

I missed the future. …the voracious ambition of humans is never sated by dreams coming true, because there is always the thought that everything might be done better and again.

Calm seas don’t make great sailors.

My therapist told me, “Time heals all wounds,” so I stabbed him. Now we wait.

No secrets in the house of pain. 

In a fallen world, even perfection is flawed.

There’s gonna be a party when the wolf comes home.

Join us as we dance madly on the lip of the volcano.

They’re dangerous at both ends and… crafty in the middle. Why would I want anything with a mind of its own bobbing about between my legs?

The secret of command lies largely in giving orders that are apt to be obeyed.

Open guitar surgery.

Dancing naked in the ruins.

The gods rarely take note of fools.

Embrace the sands of time.

Stranger from another manager: Jesus. 

Too weird to live. Too rare to die.

You can tell the ideals of a nation by its advertisements. Norman Douglas

I have traveled through time and turmoil, blood and pain, roughly a million people and more than a million miles to find this part of me.

I’m still working and looking. I’ll know when I find me.

Alternate version

I have traveled through time and turmoil, blood and pain, roughly a million people and more than a million miles to find this part of me.

I’m still working and looking. I’ll know me when I find me.

I hope to arrive to my death late, in love and a little drunk.

Alternate version

I hope to arrive to my death late, in love and reasonably satisfied.

A pun is its own reword.

A recent study revealed that humans ate more bananas than monkeys. I can’t remember the last time I ate a monkey.

Don’t worry. He won’t get far on foot.

With friends like these, who needs hallucinations?

What doesn’t kill you gives you a set of unhealthy coping mechanisms and a dark sense of humor.

Talk with people who make you see the world differently. (Ignore the morons)

Reality hates satirists.

A smart salmon never stops for directions.

Why does my wife wait until I’m at the other end of the house before telling me to, “Merm frnerf maubrn shilfentwgerk!”

Everyone complains about the weather, but no one wants to sacrifice a virgin to change it.

Jack Sparrow: Take what ye can!

Mr. Gibbs: Give nothin’ back!

 – Pirates of the Caribbean

My version

Toast: Take what you came for.

Response: Give nothing back.

“There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.” — Søren Kierkegaard

My friends treat me like god. Mostly they ignore my existence and only talk to me when they need something.

Jesus believed in philanthropy, and we all know how that worked out for him.

If one could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people.

“We realized that all our doubts, all the things we had been fobbed off about by priests and teachers, we had been right about all along. We were right to ask these questions and, no, they didn’t have an answer, they were just very good at telling you to stop looking for it.”

— Christopher Brookmyre

1 Corinthians 11:5

But every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head–it is the same as having her head shaved.

The only thing prayer does is make you feel better about doing nothing.

The people who sheltered Anne Frank were breaking the law. The people who killed her were obeying the law.

When you die, you actually do become closer to god, because you won’t exist either.

You are a beautiful skin sock holding water and gas. Never let anyone tell you different.

Imagine if you carried on believing in Santa into adulthood and even killed and started wars over him.

I want to die like my Grandfather, peacefully, in my sleep; not screaming in terror like the passengers on his bus.

Most people do not believe something is possible until it happens. Max Brooks

“Poverty exists not because we cannot feed the poor, but because we cannot satisfy the rich.”

They say we get wiser with age. I totally screwed that up.

Next week I’m absolutely going to get my shit together.

“If you don’t think you’re close-minded for not believing in Zeus, then please don’t accuse atheists of being close-minded for not believing in your god.” — Greta Christina

Did you ever wrongfully slaughter your kinsman’s yak?

All I ask is the chance to prove that money can’t make me happy.

God hates facts.

Shut up Wilbur and load the photon torpedoes. – Bloom County

I got kicked out of Lowe’s today. I was walking the aisles with a screwdriver in my hand proclaiming, “May I have your attention please. This is not a drill.”

It’s not true that tronald dump keeps thumbtacks as pets.

I’ve got to stop wondering, “How stupid can you be?” My republican friends are taking it as a challenge.

Don’t reduce politics to a slanging match. Christopher Brookmyre, Country of the Blind

Adventures are what you have when you screw up.  Shockwave by John Sanford

“Ever notice how dumb luck seems to follow smart people around?”

Shock Wave

Sandford, John

Post Dramatic Stress Disorder

I love waking up and kissing the person sleeping next to me. Of course, I’ll never be allowed to fly Delta again.

“Difficulty is the one excuse history never accepts.” Edward R. Murrow

The richest man is not he who has the most, but he who needs the least

Young people should be shot and not heard.

Don’t end up an NPC.

Laugh like you mean it!

Freedom of the press is a flaming sword. Use it wisely. Hold it high. Guard it well. – The Godwulf Manuscript, Robert B. Parker. 

I have the heart of a lion and a lifetime ban from the Toronto Zoo.

I told my wife she drew her eyebrows too high. She seemed surprised.

Hardships prepare ordinary people for extraordinary things.

The world is changed by your example not by your opinion.

Just because my path is different doesn’t mean I’m lost.

They told me I couldn’t. That’s why I did.

Atheist oath: “Dorfl held up a hand the size of a shovel. “I, Dorfl, Pending The Discovery Of A Deity Whose Existence Withstands Rational Debate, Swear By The Temporary Precepts Of A Self-Derived Moral System—” Feet of Clay, Pratchett, Terry

“Personal isn’t the same as important.” Men at Arms Pratchett, Terry.

“Pray you never face a good man,” Vimes thought. “He’ll kill you with hardly a word.” Men at Arms, Pratchett, Terry.

“When you hit your thumb with an eight-pound hammer, it’s nice to be able to blaspheme. It takes a very special and strong-minded kind of atheist to jump up and down with her hand clasped under her armpit and shout, “Oh, random fluctuations-in-the-space-time-contiuum!” or “Aaargh, primitive-and-outmoded-concept on a crutch!” Men at Arms – Pratchett, Terry.

“The people who guard the rainbow don’t like those who get in the way of the sun.” Pratchett, Terry. “Going Postal.”

The past is in your head. The future is in your hands.

If there are no stupid questions, then what kind of questions to stupid people ask? Did they get smart just in time to ask questions? Scott Adams

If stupidity got us into this mess, then why can’t it get us out? Will Rogers

I haven’t been everywhere, but it’s on my list.

People are born and they die. What any of them do in between doesn’t look like much from a distance. Viruses and rusty nails, they’re working all the time. Always were, always will be. If they didn’t exist, we’d die anyway. Vanishing Act, Thomas Perry

“Being a warrior is not about dying. Dying is what we do if we must, and if we must we do it well. Being a warrior is about getting up every day ready to die.” – LtCol. Dave Grossman

If you’re not living on the edge, you’re taking up too much room.

For the benefit of the hard of thinking…

When she said, “Friends with benefits,” I assumed she owned the bookstore.

I am fully prepared to die trying to pet an alien.

Be yourself, everybody else is already taken.

“Escorting a murderer on a subway without handcuffs is a damn nuisance.”  – Three Doors to Death, Rex Stout

Sarcasm: The ability to insult idiots without them realizing it.

Good weather for approaching apocalypse.

“You can’t keep knocking yourself out on the sky” Excerpt From Guards! Guards! By Pratchett, Terry

“He began to cry. The tears ran down his cheeks. His nose began to issue terrible liquids.”

A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business.  ~Henry Ford

Angela Merkel arrives at Passport Control at Paris airport.

“Nationality?” asks the immigration officer.

“German,” she replies.

“Occupation?”

“No, just here for a few days.”

Without luck no man can keep himself alive. In the Best Families, Rex Stout

Someone offered me grapes, but I declined. I’m not used to consuming wine in pill form.

But as Arnold Palmer reportedly once said, “It’s a funny thing, the more I practice, the luckier I get.” 

Hope is based on faith. Confidence on ability.

Why do medications always have side effects like “anal leakage” or “suicidal thoughts”? Why not “invisibility” or “multiple orgasms”?

Safety is a crime no writer should ever commit.

A man is not dead while his name is still spoken. Terry Pratchett, Going Postal, Chapter 4

Not sure what this is in reference to. 6/14/2012 – sarah palin is astounded by the debris washing up on the coast of Alaska. She said, “That would mean the world is round.”

Sometimes it is the people who no one imagines anything of, who do the things that no one can imagine.

Just ‘cuz you got the monkey off your back doesn’t mean the circus has left town.

The reward for work well-done is more work.

The world is black and white, good and bad, no matter what you hear. The people who say it isn’t have already chosen black. – Amos Walker

There are two types of people in the world: Those who can extrapolate from incomplete data sets.

They used to laugh when I said I wanted to be a comedian. Well they’re not laughing now!

This sentence contains exactly threee erors.

To understand what recursion is, you must first understand recursion.

Weapons grade rotgut

What do you get when you cross a joke with a rhetorical question?

Will wash dishes for sex.

I is an algebraic number.

I am not an algebraic number.

I survived the Zombie Apocalypse and all I got was this bloody T-shirt

Atheist T-shirt: I’d rather die while I’m living, than live when I’m dead.

If it weren’t for those damned liberals we would be living in a polluted, unemployed paradise where everyone carried a gun and wasn’t afraid to use it.

It’s hard to explain puns to kleptomaniacs because they always take things literally.

Keep Calm and Don’t Blink – (I don’t know what this is in reference to. Maybe Doctor Who?)

Never look back. The past is a wilderness of horrors. – The Wolfman

Of course there’s a lot of knowledge in universities:  the freshmen bring a little in; the seniors don’t take much away, so knowledge sort of accumulates.  ~A. Lawrence Lowell

Oh, For fox Sake!

Roman walks into a bar, holds up two fingers, and says, “Five beers, please”.

Got bored today so I dressed up in tan pants and a blue shirt then went into Best Buy and quit.

Life has a way of presenting you with a shit sandwich and tailoring events so you have to hang around and eat it. – Thomas Perry, Vanishing Act

Our background and circumstances may have influenced who we are, but we are responsible for who we become.

Paige Turner – Staff Librarian

PEBKAC – Problem exists between keyboard and chair

People do awful things to each other. But it’s worse in places where everyone’s kept in the dark. Information—in itself—is light! – Tom Stoppard

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.  ~e.e. cummings, 1955

Reading is a hazard to ignorance. It can lead to education and knowledge.

Atheism is the belief that there was nothing and nothing happened to nothing and then nothing magically exploded for no reason, creating everything and then a bunch of everything magically rearranged itself for no reason whatsoever into self-replicating bits which then turned into dinosaurs.

Of course, there are several things wrong with this definition, the most glaring being that it’s doesn’t have anything to do with atheism.

Believing this statement will make you happier. 

Cicero remarked that old age is a strange business. No one wants to miss it, he said, and everyone complains about it when they get there…

Citizens United States of America

If your god allows children to die because he’s not “allowed” in schools, you need a tougher god.

Here lies one from a distant star, but the soil is not alien to him, for in death he belongs to the universe. – Alien epitaph

Cunnilingus is a real tongue-twister.

Did you hear about the jurisprudence fetishist? He got off on a technicality…

Dip me in chocolate and throw me to the lesbians.

Don’t just float through life. Make waves.

Educatio est omnium efficacissima forma rebellionis.

Education is the most effective form of rebellion

Almost every word in this sentence is a gross misspelling of the word “tomato.”

Felching – How does Jon Stewart know about all this stuff?

Rusty trombone

Cleveland steamer

Dirty Sanchez

There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters. – Daniel Webster

He who sings prays twice.

“We are star stuff contemplating star stuff.” Carl Sagan 

You are the song my soul would sing.

I shuffled off toward the statistical improbability of dying in an airplane crash. – Don’t Point That Thing at Me by Kyril Bonfiglioli

When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced. Live you life so that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice. — Cherokee aphorism

Fear makes people stupid. “Feed”

I thought growing older would take longer.

“You know you’re in love when you can’t fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.” Dr. Seuss

Be the kind of woman that, when your feet hit the floor each morning, the devil says, “Oh crap. She’s up.”

I’ve been married long enough to know that when the Boss says, “Do what you want,” my only survivable course of action is to stand still, without blinking or breathing, and play dead.

When one expects nothing of the world, one is never disappointed.

Try to steer clear of felonies.

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead

“‘Faith’ means not wanting to know what is true.”  Friedrich Nietzsche

From the Corner Gas movie:

• The four Norsemen of the Apocalypse. 
• Fonzi schemes. 

“A ten-point buck and a dead body make the same sound when they hit the forest floor.” — Ashley Elston, This Is Our Story

Early one June morning in 1872 I murdered my father–an act which made a deep impression on me at the time.  — Ambrose Bierce, An Imperfect Conflagration

He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad. – Rafael Sabatini, Scaramouch

Psychics can see the color of time. It’s blue. – Ronald Sukenick, Blown Away

In the town, there were two mules, and they were always together. – The heart is a lonely Hunter

Lost causes are the only ones worth fighting for. Might be from, “The Truth.”

The weak shall be destroyed. (Sneeze response)

That’s the liquor talking. (Sneeze response)

“The now” can never be preserved.

Design is communication, problem solving, and motivating/directing action.

I had my hands on his throat before he could see me move and I squeezed his voice into eternal loyalty.

The darker the night, the brighter the sun shines on the other side of the world.

Garments are worn to make one believe there is something special or unusual or of great hidden value underneath, but underneath is always the same.

Loyalty is strongest when there is common self interest.

If your dreams don’t scare you, they’re not big enough.

Dead men are heavier than broken hearts

If you’re asked to be the hero, be the hero.

Comedy is someone else’s tragedy. – Hidden City/Baxter

The streets ran with tears. – Hidden City/Baxter

I am embarrassed for my species when I hear the Flat Earth Society has members around the globe.

The arena is in the minds of the mob.

— Richard Ben Sapir, The Far Arena

I hug the people I hate so I know how deep to dig the hole in my backyard.

My desk is not a mess – it is a wilderness of free expression

Alternate factualist

You can’t spell advertisements without semen between the tits.

I can pretty well imagine the effect of opening your car door and having a Mitchell B-25 fly over you at night, trailing a couple of metric tons of snow behind it like diffused vengeance.

Craig Johnson, Spirit of Steamboat

I’ve been running circles around a night that never ends – — Blondie, Long Time, Album: Pollinator

“Religion has developed a whole edifice of beliefs and dogmas based on nothing more substantial than myths and fantasies and a dogmatic assumption that, for no other reason than wishful thinking and clerical necessity, these myths and fantasies must be true.”

— Rosa Rubicondior

“Billions of years ago God was creating universes and life; thousands of years ago he was creating angry floods, sin-saving human sacrifices and audible burning bushes. Today he occasionally appears on a piece of toast. To state that God has become reclusive over the years would be an overwhelming understatement.” 

— Trevor Treharne

“If you want the honest-to-God truth, most people have a lot they want to say and not much they want to hear.”

 — Caimh McDonnell, A Man with One of Those Faces

The only thing a pistol is good for is to fight your way to a rifle.

“Every community was special and nowhere was like everywhere else.” From: Bryson, Bill. Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid.

I am at the stage of life where most of my conversations start with, “Did I tell you this already?” or “What was I going to say?”

“Sergeant Colon had had a broad education. He’d been to the School of My Dad Always Said, the College of It Stands to Reason, and was now a postgraduate student at the University of What Some Bloke In the Pub Told Me”

 – Pratchett, Terry. “Jingo.”. 

Not one of us ever grows up to be what he intended to be. Not one of us fulfills his own expectations. We are all our own children. At some point, somewhere, we have to stop making demands.

From “The Green Ripper” by John D McDonald

Her tits used to be front and center. They would look folks square in the eye and say, “Hello.” Now they say, “I like your shoes.”

The biggest misconception I had about adults when I was a kid was thinking they knew what they were doing.

Now I worry that I’ll die from eating recalled vegetables.

I need to find a hobby that doesn’t involve eating or buying things.

The days of people using proper English are went.

Satan was the first to demand equal rights.

I was driving past a little boy at a lemonade stand. I wasn’t going to stop, but he stared at me and mimed throwing a lasso at my car and pulling me in. I live in a lawless land, but now I have lemonade.

I am not a mess but a deeply feeling person in a messy world. When someone asks why I cry so often I say, “For the same reason I laugh so often—because I’m paying attention.

Being negative makes the journey more difficult. Someone may have given you a lemon, but you don’t have to suck on it.

I must have been really tired last night. My alarm went off at 6:53 this morning. The message said, “Collect suspicious pebbles.”

Every action, every decision you’ve ever made, lead you to this post.

I had a goldfish who could breakdance on wall-to-wall carpeting, but only for 20 seconds…and only once.

Ineffable are the ways of gods

Romeo and Sally

“Sally, you skipped breakfast.” Alice Post stood in the door of the ranch house with a paper bag in her left hand and a pint-sized paper cup in her right.

“Get out of my way,” Sally said. She lugged twenty-seven pounds of saddle as she shouldered the massive hindquarters of a brown gelding aside. Another five pounds of leather and steel tack hung from her neck.

“Hindquarters,” Sally mumbled, “not horse’s ass. That’s not ladylike at all.” Sally wore her fourteen years with pride. She was still mostly shaped like a boy, but she had aspirations. Her brassier contained only hopes that she would fill it “any day now.” If she stretched, she reached sixty and a half inches. After a big meal, she tipped the scale at ninety-six pounds. She wore her hair sensibly short. It looked as if she had cut it herself, because she cut it herself, and the mirror in the bathroom didn’t have a good light.

Sally wore a black felt cowboy hat with a subtle silver band, a blue, long-sleeved cowboy shirt, and dungarees that emphasized her few curves. She hoped to bump into Garth in the field today. “Best dress to impress” was her motto when dealing with Garth. She hoped they could cool down the perpetual war between shepherds and cowboys.

Mrs. Post hurried across the yard. “Breakfast before you hit the trail,” she called.

“Dad made me breakfast,” Sally said as she ducked between the gelding and a red dappled mare. Sally should have known better. Armed with breakfast, Alice Post was like the Terminator. She could not be stopped.

“Your father has been lambing all night. I’m almost certain he didn’t take an hour off to make you breakfast.”

Sally knew losing Mom by squeezing between the horses was hopeless when she was armed with a paper bag, but she tried anyway. Mom elbowed the huge gelding aside and shouldered between the horses. “Yikes,” Alice said. The lave-hot coffee in the paper cup burned her fingers as the cup began to melt.

When Sally reached the corral fence she heaved the saddle up to the top board. “Ugh,” she grunted.

“Sally!” her mother said. “That wasn’t very ladylike.”

Sally leaned her head against the saddle. “There’s nobody here except a couple no-account cowboys and a dozen horses.”

“Boys like to dance with girls who act like ladies.” Alice recited one of the rules she made up when her twelve-year-old daughter started noticing boys. Alice spent the ensuing two years making up rules about swearing, spitting, scratching, and other habits Sally picked up from her father and the hands who tended the flocks. Recently Alice added grunting to her list of behavior she frowned upon as “unladylike.”

Sally glowered at the saddle for another moment then turned a smile toward Mom. “Sorry Mom.” Pretending the proffered bag and melting cup were invisible, she climbed the fence, making sure she faced away when her eyes rolled.

“Take your breakfast, dear. I have to run. Mrs. Foley thinks she’s in labor.” Alice Post was the only midwife in five hundred square miles of Montana high prairie. As she was delivering babies, she worked at turning the new mothers into ladies. The local women dropped their babies in May and June, just like the ewes. Alice quailed to think what went on in the sheep wagons in August.

“Aw, Mom.” The scent oozing from the bag made the horses shift nervously.

“Iowa?” Alice called. Sally noticed the scarred black bowler bobbing on the far side of a mare.

“Yes, Mrs. Post?” A mumbled whisper lifted over the horse’s withers.

“I gave Sally her breakfast,” Alice Post said, holding out the bag and cup.

Sally noticed with horror the grease spreading on the bag.

“Please make sure she eats it before she gets on that horse.”

A mumble that might have been “Yes, Ma’am” floated through the air.

Unable to continue ignoring the bag, Sally took her breakfast. Her face hurt from smiling. She continued smiling until her mother disappeared between the two horses’ rumps. “Damn,” Sally grumped.

“Rule number 1: ‘Swearing is not ladylike’,” her mother reminded from halfway back to the house.

“Splat,” the bag said when it hit the ground.

Like magic, a man-child in his early twenties picked up the bag and scolded, “Tossing your breakfast on the ground? Not ladylike.”

“Aw, Iowa. Don’t make me eat it,” Sally pleaded. Iowa had worked for the Posts for three years. He stood no taller than Sally but outweighed her by fifty pounds, most of it “baby fat,” he told people. His round face never tired from smiling because it was too busy laughing. Though he was from Utah, no one called him Utah because a Utah herded cattle at the neighboring ranch. He liked the idea of four letters, because spelling wasn’t his favorite thing, so everyone called him Iowa. His real name was Bob, not Robert, Muggs. No one ever called him by either name.

“If you don’t eat it, I’ll have to.” Iowa held out the bag. “She’ll ask. You know I can’t lie to her. Neither can you.”

Sally snatched the bag. The greasy bottom was covered in what she could only hope was barnyard dust rather than digested hay.

“The coffee, too,” Iowa said. “If I have to call Blackfoot, you’ll either drink it or wear it.” No one could get angry while Iowa smiled at them.

Blackfoot was the Posts’ foreperson. He was more than a foot taller than Iowa but weighed about the same. He herded sheep all of his professional life, and he looked it. He never wore a hat because his hair and beard were as fluffy as the softest ewe, but no one would call Blackfoot soft.  He looked like a pick handle covered in leather. The only thing he feared was Alice Post.

Face clenched, head tilted back, Sally poured the pint of lukewarm, overly sugared mud down her throat. Her mother probably thought it was coffee, but Sally knew better. She gulped, gagged, gulped, gagged and gulped a third time before the cup was empty. She wiped her chin with a forefinger and flicked it at Iowa. The cup followed.

Iowa dodged, stuck out his tongue, and stooped to pick up the litter.

A caffeine-and-sugar-coated whistle arched over the corral. “C’mere, Jake,” Sally invited.

A bark sounded from the barn, and a brindle Airedale puppy streaked from the broad door. He usually slept in Sally’s room, but he recently confused an ornery skunk for a prairie dog, so he slept in the barn for a while.

“Don’t do it,” Iowa warned.

“Brrrppp!” Sally’s eructation echoed from the barn to the house and back.

“You drank your coffee too fast.”

“It’s the only way to drink that stuff.”

“Not ladylike.” Iowa shook his bowler-clad head.

“Stuff it,” Sally suggested.

“Even less ladylike.” Iowa jinked as an expensive Lucchese flashed toward him. Mr. Post had given Sally a pair of Lucchese boots when her calf roping team took silver at the State Stockman’s Rodeo for the second year in a row. At $220, they were the cheapest Luccheses made, but Sally loved them. She thought they made her “hindquarters” look great. Iowa put up a hand and caught the boot. He lifted and the girl shrieked. “Less ladylike by the second.”

Sally giggled. Iowa dropped her foot and grinned at her.

“Yip,” Jake yipped. His forelegs scrabbled at the middle board of the corral fence. His neck stretched toward the breakfast bag. “Yipe!” he yiped when his nose got close. He dropped his paws to the ground, ran across the corral, and rolled in a half-bushel of road apples.

Sally sighed.

“Cruelty to animals,” Iowa noted. “I’ll have to report you if you feed that to him.”

“I’m an animal.” Sally peeked into the bag.

“Certainly not a lady,” Iowa observed.

Sally lowered her brows and glowered in his direction then gasped as she dug into the bag. “Oh, yuck,” she said as she pulled a limp slab of under-toasted Wonder bread from the bag. A yellowish blob of maybe-scrambled eggs dripped on Sally’s blue denim clad leg. She wiped at it with a finger, made another face, stuck the finger in her mouth and grimaced as another clod of yellow plopped on her knee. “Damn!” Sally informed the world.

Iowa tsked while backing away. “Your mom will find that on the ground if you throw it at me,” Iowa reminded her.

“You there. Iowa. Stop messing with the brat and get your flock to the south pasture.” Blackfoot’s voice echoed from the barn.

“Brat?” shrieked Sally. “I see you hiding behind Plume, Blackie. Want to see me knock your saddle off?

Blackfoot, no last name, grinned at Sally as he emerged from the barn. “That’d make a worse missile than it does a breakfast. ‘Sides, if you get that stuff on my horse, you’ll spend the mornin’ washin’ ‘er down.”

Sally giggled again then swore as twelve inches of limp bacon slithered off the uncooked toast to plop next to the yellow blob on her knee.

“‘S’gonna drip long as you mess around,” Blackfoot said.

Resigned, Sally gobbled the soggy toast, runny eggs and greasy bacon in four huge bites.

“Should’a saved some o’ that ditch water to wash it down,” Blackfoot mused.

Looking slightly green, Sally nodded as she swallowed a couple more times.

The men laughed. They had been subject to Alice Post’s kindnesses many times.

“Bag?” Iowa asked.

“Empty,” Sally said. “She upended the greasy sack and a last pale yellow blob dropped on her knee. “Shit!” Sally scooped it into her mouth. “Happy?”

“You did good,” Iowa said. “Sorry about the pants.”

Sally scraped at her greasy knee. “This is my rodeo pair. I wore them because I heard Garth calved his herd last night.” Garth was two years older and the reason Sally noticed boys.

“That herd’ll be real spooky this mornin’,” Blackfoot said. “You stay away from them. Shepherds and cowboys shouldn’t mingle. It’s not ladylike.” He grumbled at Iowa about cowboys as they mounted their horses. “Might be time for another rule.”

“I’ll suggest it next time I see Mrs. Post,” Iowa said.

Blackfoot took Sally’s breakfast bag. “I got that.” He folded the dripping bag into some burlap and stuck it in his boot. “There’s a coyote den back o’ my pasture. I’d like to discourage ‘em.”

“Bye, Iowa. Bye Blackie,” Sally shouted as the men rode off toward their herds. She wriggled on the fence for a moment, trying to settle her breakfast. Her father used the same ingredients and made wonderful breakfasts. Her mother’s breakfasts upset her digestion.

Sally dropped off the fence and elbowed horses to reach Teabag. The Lipton colored horse nuzzled her pocket. Sally pulled out three crabapples and held them in her flattened palm while Teabag lipped them off one by one. Sally said, “Time to go to work.” She led the gelding by his halter to the fence. He stood patiently while Sally flipped her left stirrup over his back. She slid the saddle off the fence and on to the beast’s back. She hated to think of Garth or one of the shepherds seeing her do that, but it lessened the need for unladylike grunting.

She tightened Teabag’s girth, slid the bit into his mouth, fastened his bridle and leapt to the saddle. “C’mon, Jake,” she said.

“Woof.” Jake shed his road apple bath with a vigorous shake. Sally sneezed and waved her hat to blow the cloud away.

Teabag ambled to the gate. Sally leaned down and unlatched it. Teabag nudged it open. Jake flashed past. Sally and Teabag both winced at his bouquet as they eased through the gate. Sally made a long arm, reached inside the corral and flipped the latch.

—–

Sally’s flock, tended by Tux, a black-and-white Border collie, and Cactus, a blue-and-white Australian shepherd, milled about behind the bunkhouse. No coyote, wolf or mountain lion would sample any mutton while Tux and Cactus were on guard, but they needed a human to locate the greenest grass.

Jake ran over to greet the shepherds, but they growled him away. Off duty, Sally’s Three Lads, as her father called them, rolled in the same manure piles. On duty, Jake distracted them, and they hated to be distracted.

Sally raised her riding crop and pointed. “Staple Ridge,” she called.

Tux yipped to start the drive. Tux loved driving her sheep. She didn’t tolerate stragglers. She was smaller than any ewe at thirty-five pounds, but she was by far the more ferocious of the working dogs. Woe to the predator who sniffed around with Tux on duty. She felt protective of Sally, too. “I’ll have to ditch her if I bump into Garth,” Sally thought, “or I’ll never get my first kiss.”

Cactus had a blue watcheye on the right side and a brown shepherd’s eye on the left. The mismatched eyes made him look mad, but he was the best dog on the ranch. Cactus was too august to yip. His single woof was enough to get his part of the flock moving. He trotted behind the sheep looking dignified.

Jake ranged ahead, showing the way.

—–

Staple Ridge divided Post Sheep Station pastures in the northern mountains from the cow pastures of Carlton Ranch. Lush green grass grew on either side thanks to a spring bubbling down the spine. As the ridgeline entered the Ponderosa forest to the west, the creek tumbled down the Post side of the ridge. Enough fresh water soaked into the topsoil that Sally hoped Garth would choose it for his new mothers and their calves.

Teabag had a gentle gait, but Sally hadn’t ridden more than a quarter mile before she was reminded of her mother’s love if not her mother’s talent. Hoping to settle her stomach, she took great gulps of air. Once she caught a whiff of Jake and almost revisited her breakfast. Sally’s belch went unnoticed by the flock. “Ladylike behavior is for company,” she thought. She wriggled in her saddle and explained to the sheep how she loved her mother and hated her breakfast. The sheep understood.

Moving at sheep-speed, the flock took an hour to reach the pasture below the ridge. Sally “complimented the chef” every hundred yards or so. Some of her compliments, combining as they did aural and olfactory sensations, hurried the sheep along.

As the shepherds moved the flock into the pasture, Jake polluted the spring while getting a drink. He knew better than to drink from the spring but took advantage Cactus and Tux’s distraction to ignore the edict.

The sheep ranged contentedly across the 350 acres of grass. Sally whistled and waved her crop in a circle. Cactus paced the perimeter while Tux held her position at the rear of the flock. When Cactus finished his circuit, he laid down on the side opposite Tux.

Sally squeezed her knees, and Teabag moseyed to the creek. Only Jake drank from the spring. Everyone else knew the spring was for people, so they drank from the creek instead. Sally dismounted and let Teabag drink his fill. When he finished, she led him to the pasture so he could taste the grass before the sheep trampled it. She left him there while she went to the spring and drank Gideon style. The water refreshed her. The Jake residue gagged her. Her stomach reminded her of the insulting breakfast. Her stomach twisted and heaved. She almost laughed at the ground.

—–

Sally heard a distant cow low.

Sally circled uphill from the spring until she could see over the ridgeline. Sure enough, Garth was driving nine cows toward the green. Sally counted again. Nine cows and ten calves! “Congratulations, Garth,” Sally thought. He must have had twins.

Sally wormed back down the ridge so Garth wouldn’t see her. Blackfoot disapproved of her mingling with cowboys. Iowa did too, but he didn’t count. They agreed that Garth was a great guy, but he tended cows rather than sheep, so he occupied a lower rung on the social pecking order.

Garth said his father felt the same way about the shepherds.

—–

When she wriggled far enough that she could stand without being seen, she stood too fast and reminded the world of her mother’s cooking so vigorously that the stench from her own mouth almost made her sick. Either distance or cow noise prevented Garth from appreciating Sally’s breakfast remark. Sally hoped the smell of the cows would cover the rest of her comment.

“I was going to be Juliet to his Romeo,” she told Teabag, “and maybe get the cowboys and the shepherds together, but Mom’s breakfast screwed that up.”

The warm, lazy day put Sally at ease. She scrambled on to Teabag’s back and rode away from her flock. She resigned herself to avoiding Garth. Cactus and Tux stayed on station. Jake whizzed past her and plunged into the pines at the downhill edge of the pasture. The fresh scent of the trees didn’t help much with her gastric affliction.

—–

An hour among the pines did little to settle Sally’s stomach. Riding back through her flock did even less. In the warm pasture, the sheep were enthusiastically doing what they do to make room for more grass. Sally could see the waves of enthusiasm floating above the flock. She rode around the herd rather than through the middle to avoid the ovine miasma. Tux yipped as Sally rode past. Cactus woofed from the far side. Sally was grateful for her two working dogs, particularly when she was under the weather.

She rode toward the top of the ridge to watch the flock without facing the sun. She settled into her saddle the way Blackfoot had taught her. She could watch her flock and sleep in her saddle at the same time.

She was dozing when Jake woke her. She saw him nose-to-nose with a wobbly black calf, not much bigger than he was. Garth’s ranch raised Belted Swiss, black cattle with a white belt around their middle. The belt didn’t come until the cows were a year old. Jake whined at one of Garth’s newborns. It seemed she’d face Garth after all.

Sally whistled. With a final sniff, Jake bounded toward Sally and Teabag. As Sally hoped, the calf bawled and followed the Airedale. Sally reached for her rope, trying not to spook the calf. Her rodeo horse knew his business. He turned to mask Sally’s movement. When she got her rope unsnapped, she whirled it once around her head and loosed it toward the calf. The loop settled around the calf’s neck. Teabag jerked it tight. Jake grabbed the rope in his teeth as the calf bawled.

An answering bellow sounded from the other side of the ridge.

Sally squeezed her mount into motion with her knees, leaned right and directed him toward the top of the ridge. Without warning, she and her horse were face to face with eight hundred pounds of worried pot roast. Mama pushed past the horse and headed for the calf. Sally rode over the ridge and started down the other side. “Hey, cowboy,” she croaked, “I’ve got something that belongs to you.”

The aroma of sun-on-cow punched her in the stomach.

Garth held a calf in his arms on the far side of his herd. “So you do,” he said. “I’ll be right with you.” He was a lean six-footer who looked like Blackfoot must have looked fifty years earlier. The dessert-plate sized silver belt buckle, which announced to the world who won the calf roping competition at the Stockman’s Rodeo and beat Sally’s team, flared when Garth placed the calf on the ground and stretched to his full height. The rolled sleeves on his blue plaid shirt revealed the ropey muscles in his forearms. Even his leather gloves showed his class.

Sally tried to calm her heart, then her stomach, then her heart again. Garth looked like a god with tight Levis and a more expensive pair of Luccheses. He smiled under his hundred-dollar hat as he picked his way through the herd. He danced to avoid soiling his five hundred dollar boots.

Sally curled around her stomach. She gulped air to calm down. She tried to think of some stomach god she could pray to, to settle things worn. “Hic,” she said quietly before Garth was close enough to hear. “Hic. Hic.” She was practically lying on Teabag when Garth arrived.

“Can I help you with that?” Garth asked. He reached for her lasso.

“Just because I won second doesn’t mean I don’t know how to handle a rope.” Sally slid off Teabag’s back. When her foot hit the ground, her digestive system taught her something she hadn’t thought to learn until tenth grade biology: her alimentary system had two ends. The lesson was palpable and pungent. It got Jake’s attention, and Teabag’s and the calf’s.

Garth had just released the loop. He paused at Sally’s digestive distress, but was too much of a gentleman to react.

Jake wasn’t. He ran back to find the source of the eruption. His sudden turn startled the calf, which bolted away from the Airedale. The calf’s mother lurched at Teabag before she turned around and ran after her calf. Teabag was startled by the huge cow threatening him with her horns. He reared. The other eight new mothers, seeing the apparition on the hill threatening their calves, headed down slope as fast as they could.

Garth was laid on the ground by the passing of the calf’s mother. “What was that?” He tried to stop it from passing his lips, but he couldn’t.

Teabag had knocked Sally to the ground. Trying not to cry, Sally swatted Jake’s intrusive nose away from her backside.

Garth rose, dusted himself off, and strode to Sally’s side. “We try not to do that on cattle ranches,” he said. He controlled his laughter but not his tears. He extended a hand, which shook with suppressed laughter. Sally yanked his hand. He almost landed on top of her.

Sally knew she was going to cry. She tried to laugh instead. She did both. Try as she might, Sally couldn’t stop crying and laughing and blushing and crying some more.

Garth jumped to his feet and helped Sally up. He put his arms around her and waltzed her along the ridge with his laughter. She gripped him until she was laughing more than crying. Her tears wet his shirt and her laughter mingled with his. “I suppose you expect me to help round up those dumb cows.”

“I’d appreciate the company,” Garth said. Still holding her hand, he walked her over to Teabag and helped her up. Then he leapt up behind, wrapped his arms around her, and pointed at his pinto mare. “Can you drop me off yonder?” he murmured in her ear.

“If I can’t get a kiss out of this, there’s something wrong with me,” Sally thought. “Mom’s cooking finally did me a favor.”

 

6th draft
Dec 15, 2019
Edited Dec 17, 2019

The Last American Sonnet

I wrote this for my Creative Writing class. Given the dark times we are living through, I thought folks could use some encouragement.
(Step aside William Shakespeare.)

The President we know as tronald dump
Assumes Americans are foolish folks.
Malaise has put the country in a slump.
“Those Democrats. Too stupid for my jokes.”

Impeachment is the only way to go
Ahead and try to save our nation’s pride.
ivanka and her husband and her bros
Will see their father when they’re locked inside.

Recovery from trauma can begin
When rudy and mulvaney and The pence
All have a big reunion in the pen,
And all the scoundrels are inside the fence.

Pelosi takes the White House in a storm
And strives to help return US to the norm.

Linguistic debauchery

Before everyone flames me, I know verbing nouns is frowned upon by all right thinking people.

 

I have heard people verb all sorts of nouns. My topic today is time nouns. I have heard people say, “We summered at the beach.” That doesn’t sound too awful to my ears.

 

I have heard people say, “We Christmased with Grandma last year.” That sounds less euphonious but not grating.

 

Even “We Halloweened like mad last night.” doesn’t sound more than strained.

 

As a lark, last week I told friends and family we were “Thanksgivinging” at home this year. Now I am telling them we “Thanksgivinged” with the kids at home.

 

That seems to have crossed a linguistic line.

 

Are there other temporal nouns I can debauch?

Vote for me on November 3, 2020.

Andrew Yang wants to provide every American adult with a Universal Basic Income of a thousand bucks a month, for a total of $12,000 per year in addition to any money the adult might earn elsewhere. My purpose here is not to argue for or against the UBI.

 

Instead, I am going to argue for the Universal Guaranteed Orgasm (UGO) for Incels.

 

[“Incel” is a portmanteau of “involuntary celibates.” Such men form an online subculture who claim to be unable to find a romantic or sexual partner despite desiring one, a state they describe as inceldom.]

 

UGO will provide employment for thousands of orgasm providers and will settle down a significant portion of unsettled members (no double entendre intended) of our society. Instead of a thousand buck a month, I suggest once a week would be more effective. Recipients would self-identify and register with the government. Volunteer Orgasm Providers (VOPs) would provide the weekly orgasms, get a signed receipt from the registered Incel (Limit one per week) and submit the receipt to the government for payment for services. This will result in a calmer and more fully employed society.

 

VOPs and InCels would have to get medical exams on a regular basis, generating more income and a healthier society.

 

The money the government saves from Homeland Security costs, police and FBI services, and the CDC, would more than cover costs. We’ll be a happier, healthier, calmer and friendlier nation.

 

Vote for me on November 3, 2020.

 

Other planks in my platform:

– I will lower the boiling point of water, to save energy.

– All cars will have larger tires in the sack so they always drive downhill. (Another energy-saver).

– Anyone who doesn’t have a job will be hired to move the Rocky Mountains one meter to the east, to make skiing closer to the coast.

– All the snow-producing states will form a cartel and ship their overabundance south and west to save money on air conditioning.

Breakfast

I don’t write much poetry, Perhaps, you’ll think when you finish reading this, there’s a reason for that. I think this is good enough to share with my many fans.

---

Hear the rattle of the tackle in the box
as the fisherman stumps down to the dawn
at the lake.

Hear the scrabble of the lures and the line
as the fisherman decides on the hook
and the bait.

Hear the wheet of the tip of the rod as it arcs overhead
when the fisherman casts for the deep
of the lake.

Hear the plop of the hook and the worm far away
from the dock at the edge
of the lake.

Hear the click set the reel in his hands as he fishes
for the bass, not the perch,
which he probably will catch.

See the strike on the bait make the float do a dance
for the death of a pike
in the lake.

See the flash of the knife and the splash of the guts
clean the fish for the family waking up
for a day on the lake.

Smell the grease. Hear the sizzle of the fish in the pan on the camp stove
as the fisherman marks the inches and the ounces
on the chart.

Hear the clunk and the rattle of the box full of tackle
which will sit in the back of the truck until called upon for breakfast
on the morrow.

Breakfast with Father

My dad worked his way through college in some diner or café as a short order cook. Considering the number of stories he told us growing up, it’s a mystery he never told us more than that bald fact. In fact, I don’t know it’s a fact. Mom never mentioned it, and they met and courted in college. There’s no one left to ask except my siblings, and their memories differ significantly from mine. I have no reason to think he was anything but truthful, but lacking corroborating details, I only have his claim.

And my memories of his cooking.

Dad loved mornings. He arose early during the school year. I don’t know who fixed his breakfast, but he and Mom were fed and coffeed before Dad woke the next generation.

As Dad mounted the first flight of eight oak stairs to the second floor, he started bellowing, “Oh, what a bee-you-tee-full mooor-ning” in a bass rumble the neighbors could hear. The second line, “Oh, what a bee-you-tee-full daaaaay,” meant he had turned the landing and had only eight steps to the hall. For me, it meant time to burrow deeper under the covers.

Jodi occupied the room at the top of the stairs. Dad’s bellowing stopped and everyone heard Dad encouraging Jodi to rise, order breakfast, and enjoy the day. She was no happier to get out of bed than the next person, but Dad could jolly a boulder out of the road. We heard Jo’s less than enthusiastic replies without understanding the words. When I heard her door close, I knew Devon and I were next.

Dad lumbered down the hall sharing his “wonderful feeling” that everything was going his way.

Devon, two years younger then me, arose uncomplainingly and ordered his breakfast. “Do we have Cap’n Crunch?”

“No Crunch Berries. Only Crunch.”

“I’ll have that,” Devon said.

I knew avoiding the world was impossible, but I pretended to be asleep. Dad went into his version of Old MacDonald. “Old McDaniel had a farm…”

Anyone within a block knew what sorts of creatures I had on my farm. I groaned, rolled over, and pretended to awaken. “Morning already?”

“Time for breakfast. What’s your order?”

“Two eggs, scrambled and toast.” Dad already knew my order, but he asked anyway. Sometimes I had Cheerios.

After I ordered, Dad closed our door and sneaked up on Darcy and Shari. The twins were our youngest and loved having their father’s undivided attention for a couple minutes. I couldn’t hear their orders, but twin giggling and Dad’s booing laugh came through loud and clear.

Dad never wrote our orders but never got an order wrong. He ascribed that to his time as a short order cook during his college years.

We wandered downstairs after we washed and dressed. We rushed because seats bestowed status. Nearside seats meant higher status than farside seats. Positions near the head of the table bestowed higher status than positions near the foot.  Mostly we wanted a quiet place to read. We owned one bookrack. The first person down got to use it. It did a poor job of holding books but a great job of conveying status.

Cereal eaters got their own bowls, boxes, and spoons. Milk and sugar were already on the table. Eggers waited for their breakfasts but rarely waited long. Singing whatever song was in his head, Dad would stride into the dining room with a plate or two, serve someone and lumber back through the swinging door to the kitchen. He did homework checks and lunch money checks and instrument checks while serving breakfast. When everyone was eating, Dad might join us for a final cup of coffee.

Mom spent serving time upstairs getting ready for school. She taught in the next town down, so she left before the rest of us. When she came downstairs, she made a final washed, homeworked, financed, and equipped check then carried her bags out the door.

We bused our dishes, boxes and silverware, collected our school necessaries and headed out whichever door we considered convenient for our individual schools.

Dad taught college, so his schedule was looser. He tidied a little and prepared for his day without five kids underfoot. No singing, laughing, or bellowing. No checking for lunch bags or unsigned permission slips. He spent some quiet time dressing in dazzling plaid pants held up by a black belt, radiant striped shirts, and outlandish space-based four-in-hand neckties.

Dad cooked great meals, but he never learned how to dress.

Trust your luck

My wife and I flew from Utah to New York with our five-month-old daughter in July, 1990. I had never flown with a baby, but I knew Abby to be a happy baby who was reasonably well behaved. The person who filled the aisle seat in our row had other expectations.

A compact man with a weird carry-on bag came down the aisle, found his seat was next to me, saw the baby and muttered, “A baby. Just my luck.”

I was a little put out. Maybe he had extensive experience with babies, but he had never met our baby and he was already condemning her. I promised myself he was going to be happy he had sat in our row.

I don’t like to fly, so I waited until we were in the air before I said anything. Abby and my wife AJ slept through take-off. I gritted my teeth and clung to the armrests. Unclenching, I leaned to speak to my neighbor so I wouldn’t wake anyone. “That’s got to be some kind of musical instrument,” I said. I nodded toward his carry-on case, which was tucked under the seat in front of him.

Apparently he flew everywhere, as he was relaxed and reading something from the seat pocket. He glanced at me and said, “Soprano Sax.”

“Soprano Sax?” I said. “Is that different from a regular saxophone?”

“There’s all different kinds of saxophones,” he said. “My alto and baritone saxes are with the luggage. The soprano is too valuable to put under the plane, and it’s small enough to carry onboard.”

“You must be a professional musician,” I said, hoping he wasn’t a door-to-door saxophone salesman.

His look told me he thought I was some kind of genius. “I play sax for anyone who’ll hire me,” he said.

I asked about how he happened to be in Utah, and that was all it took. He tucked the magazine back into the seat pocket and told me about playing jazz for the Utah Jazz in Utah. I asked the occasional question or made the occasional nod to keep him talking, but it didn’t take much. He was enthusiastic about his career.

It was a long flight. Abby woke and nursed. I held her while my wife went back to sleep. I listened to stories about jazz clubs in New York City, New Orleans, Miami, Chicago and I don’t remember how many other cities. I played with the baby as I listened. I had to take one break while I changed her, but otherwise I had an entertaining storyteller informing me about the club scene in America for the previous 50 years.

I don’t know much about jazz, so many of the people he mentioned didn’t mean a lot to me, but it gave me lots to ask about. I learned about playing in Harlem in the 1940s. I learned about the differences in saxophones. “Lots of people play the sax,” he said, “but not many play the soprano sax. That makes me an indispensable man.”

Because he was black he could not play in the army band during WWII, so he enlisted as a truck driver. He “drove three trucks into the ground” in the months following D-Day, hauling men and supplies to the front. He was recognized for driving 50,000 miles before he had been on the continent six months.

“During that time, I never played a single note. No time. No instruments.”

“Reeds must have been impossible to come by,” I said.

“That’s a fact,” he said.

He was mustered out of the army early because his fourth truck was destroyed when another truck hit him and pushed him into a tree near Reims, France during the Battle of the Bulge. “I sat in that truck for more than six hours,” he said. “I thought I was going to freeze to death.”

He was rescued by an infantry patrol. They were grateful for the supplies in his truck. They carried him further back from the line and got him to an aid station. 

He showed me his left hand. He was missing the tips of his ring finger and his pinkie. He had a big grin on his face and waited for me to ask. I asked.

“It must be tough playing a sax without those fingers,” I said.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out two rubber thimbles. “It took me a while to learn to play after the war, but I learned,” he said. In the beginning he made due with rubber fingertips that he made himself. When his career picked up, he was able to find someone to make better tips. He only wore them to play, but he still needed to replace them every year or two.

The flight from Salt Lake City to Newark, New Jersey took almost seven hours. We never stopped talking except for timeouts for eating, feeding Abby and changing diapers when it was my turn.

When we landed, he opened his soprano saxophone case for me. It was gorgeous, with 14 caret gold fittings for the keys. He gave me a card and invited me to come to his usual club in New York City, if I was ever in the neighborhood.

I introduced him to my wife and daughter. He gave Abby a kiss on the cheek and told her what a wonderful traveling companion she was.

If he hadn’t complained about being seated next to a baby, I would have had to entertain myself across the United States. Instead, I had a one-man show educating and entertaining me across the continent.

We shook hands. He went to find the bus to the city. We had another, shorter leg before we got picked up at the Chemung County airport and chauffeured home.