INSULTS

When Insults Had Class:

"He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire." - Winston Churchill

"A modest little person, with much to be modest about." - Winston Churchill

"I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure." - Clarence Darrow

"He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary." - William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway)

"Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?" - Ernest Hemingway (about William Faulkner)

"Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I'll waste no time reading it." - Moses Hadas

"He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know." - Abraham Lincoln

"I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it." - Groucho Marx

"I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it." - Mark Twain

"He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends." - Oscar Wilde

"I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend...if you have one." - George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill

"Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second... if there is one." - Winston Churchill, in reply

WHAT EUROPEAN CITY DO YOU BELONG IN?

You Belong in Dublin

Friendly and down to earth, you want to enjoy Europe without snobbery or pretensions. You're the perfect person to go wild on a pub crawl... or enjoy a quiet bike ride through the old part of town.

What European City Do You Belong In?

ADDENDUM II

Crystalized ginger is ambrosia ...

ADDENDUM

With regards to last night's post:

I have been able to eat bread and keep it down.

So far.

There is light at the end of the tunnel of vomit. I haven't barfed today or anything else.

It's no fun to have to eat so cautiously. I want to rip into something tasty (I'm so hungry), but I have to be careful. The bread is, at least, filling, absorbant, and harmless.

I have a strange craving for tacos, but I don't think that would be a wise move at this point.

A rain like Noah's has been coming down all morning.

Rerun is perched in the window watching it fall.

SICK AGAIN

I am sick, sick, sick again.

It's horrible! I'm spewing from both ends. All day I sat in bed convalescing or on the bathroom floor next to the porcelain portal. Tonight, however, I went to see my good buddy Chris play and sing folk music & pop standards at a local java joint (but that isn't what made me sick!). He was great, in fact, but I felt like death's bitch the whole time. I tried to be a trooper and smile and be pleasant, but I am absolutely the worst person on Earth about hiding my discomfort and misery. Afterwards, I came home and barfed like a drunken landlubber at sea. The old buttisimo made it's presence known, too, in a most dramatic fashion ... if I may be so graphic.

Later on I decided to take a warm bath and, as I lay there sleeplessly at 1:30 A.M., the doorbell rang. This freaked me out a little. A lot of horror movies start this way. I managed to get up, towell off, get dressed, and run to the door, just in time to see a van driving away. I have no idea who it was.

The only thing I ate all day was a baked potato, green tea, and some crackers. But all of these resurfaced amongst the violent spewing.

I don't know what I've got, but it is most unpleasant. It may have been the chicken sandwich I got Friday at KFC, or maybe it has something to do with the ant killer I sprayed all around the kitchen's exterior and much of the garage. If it continues until tomorrow, and I am unable to get any sustenance, I will have to call in sick at work and go to the doctor.

I hope it's nothing serious. I hope it's just the bad chicken or a stomach flu. When I was a little boy of ten or eleven, a little girl named Muffy who lived next door to me my whole life up to that point, developed a very similar barfy ailment which her parents thought was just a virus. So they waited for it to pass. They waited too long, though, because it turned out to be hepatitus, and she died.

I doubt I have anything so serious, but if it keeps up another day, and I am unable to eat, I will begin to wonder. I don't want to make the same mistake. It's a deep-seated fear brought on by a childhood trauma.

I wondered today, as I lay in bed feeling sick and mopey (and this is corny) what I
would think and say if I was actually on my death bed. Who would I call for? Well, as silly as it sounds, my first reaction was that I would summon Rerun. What would be my greatest regret? Easy: never having found true love. Is there anything I would ask of anyone? Hmmm. I would ask one of my male friends to go to my house and destroy any pornography I may have laying around. Actually, I don't own any porn ... but I think it would be a funny post-mortem prank to make somebody search for it.

That made me laugh. And laughing makes me feel much better.

THE GLORIOUS RESULTS OF A MISSPENT YOUTH

First of all, I want to thank all the great and wonderful people who wished me well during my sickness and offered varous & sundry cures for the common cold. I tried them all. All at once: snore-strips, various nose-drops, medications, ointments, oils, and teas. And they must have worked, because now I feel much better. There's still a lingering cough to deal with, but otherwise I am fine and dandy.

Next, I want to make it public that I have recently taken great steps in my life and am feeling a certain level of self control and confidence that I have never known before. Financially, especially. I actually feel good about what I have done with money as of late. I know exactly what is what & where it is going, instead of just paying out every month. I have found the cheapest way of paying off my debts of the past, with the lowest possible interest and the least amount of hassle. I have canceled a number of unnecessary accounts (like an extra internet server/email) and adjusted my phone service to minimize my monthly expenses.

Also, I am getting back into college with the precise knowledege of which classes I have to take to get a degree. This means I will have to take a math course. I have tested and know where I have to start. It isn't exactly where I left off years ago, but I didn't retain a lot of that ancient information. So what? At least I know where I stand and what I have to do. I look at it this way: I am going to make believe that I am going to college for the first time and starting from scratch. Actually I'll have a three year headstart and a reasonable GPA in everything except for math, so that's a nice advantage. And I'll be out of there in no time! Fix the math; fix the GPA. Graduate as a solid B+ student.

I still have no idea "what I want to do with my life" (screams the teacher with spittle spewing from his former Delta-house maw, as the chunky kid in the Twisted Sister shirt mouths Dee Snyder's metallic bray: "I wanna ROCK!" ---- you see what they did to me?)*. But I don't care. I don't really want to know everything. I just want to make it to the next level. Foresight helps, to an extent. So I shall try to gain some. For now though, God (or Goddess, or no-God-at-all and all forms in-between, so as not to insult anyone or their mother, brother, or pet monkey), please, please, please let me live my life and make advancements. And without so much worry, emotional rollercoastering, anger, bitterness, and scorn. Please. I beg of thee, oh Ben of Earth, hearken to my calling and live your life as I have decreed.

In other news: UNT's storied "albino squirrel" has been MURDERED! (I am extremely late in reporting this, but I thought it merited a blurb on Magical Missives anyway.) The mythic mascot was apparently scooped up by a hawk and carried into a tree. Students gathered around and pelted the poor bird with rocks & pens & erasers & then text books, until it relented. UNT's favored son (or daughter) then plummeted to earth like Kong from the Empire State Building. Unfortunately, our bushy-tailed hero, beloved and now mourned, was already dead.

A moment of silence, please.

In yet more news: Ben of Earth was almost sprayed by a skunk! I was jogging along the Chisolm Trail, one evening, when I saw the cutest little kitty-cat scurrying amongst the shadows. It was a most unusual feline, with a long white stripe on its back, and it seemed intent upon periscoping its tail and aiming its butt at me. "That's no lil kitty!!!" blared the lightbulb that went on above my head. And, quick as a cat, I hotfooted up a nearby upgrade and fled into the neighboring streets and houses...

Epilouge: ... then last night, as I was driving past the same area, I saw a bunch of teenagers partying in their front yard. Unbeknownst to them, a few houses down, a skunk (the same one?) was headed in their direction. Whether Pepe LePew shied away from them or showered them with an unholy stink, I will never know.

P.S. Is your voter registration still valid? Mine is, and I plan to use it!

VOTE KINKY!!!!!

* This is a passage from a Twisted Sister video circa 1983 or 4 or 5. If you haven't seen it, what I have written will make little or no sense to you. If, however, you have seen it (and if you grew up in the same era as me, you probably have), then you'll know what I mean.