This weekend I bought a copy of Diuretics or Diacritics or whatever it is. Fascinating read. My body thetans are feeling more and more enturbulated with each passing hour. HAIL LORD XENU.
I actually can’t get the thing opened wide enough to read it, since it’s stuffed with about sixty Scientology cult sign-up cards. So I’m enjoying the opportunity to tool around online for insightful L. Ron quotations:
Note to my coworkers: enough with the “let me borrow your pen.” These aren’t the crappy disposables you buy over at the supply store. They are mine. Seriously.
I bring them from home and they’re mine. I use them at work, but work didn’t pay for them: I did. 0.7 mm Uni-Ball Signo 207s. Mine. Best non-fountain pens I’ve ever used. Mine.
And stop chewing on them. I can’t use them after you’ve snacked on them–you might as well keep them if you’re going to do that.
This is not selfishness. In fact, it’s entirely biblical:
• John the Baptist: “Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.” Not a word about pens.
• Paul: “Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion.” Clearly the words of someone who was too frequently guilted into sharing his pens.
• John the Apostle: “I have much to write you, but I do not want to do so with pen and ink.” Probably because someone had been chewing on his pen.
My pens. Mine.
1. Easter back home in Ohio: highly recommended. Also too brief. Also a bit misunderstood: at a familial gathering, I made reference to “being in the minority”–by which I meant working for a Republican under the Democrat majority in Congress. It was interpreted as being a white feller in the District of Columbia. Not what I meant.
2. The national anthem of North Korea, I must say, is a stately little tune.
3. My office compatriots and I are due at the White House tomorrow for a West Wing tour. I’m wavering on my desire for one; will have to be at work tomorrow earlier than I got out of bed this morning. Sleep is my friend. And it always takes me a few days to get back into the congressional grind after even just 46 hours in the sanity and serenity that is Ohio. Sleep–and the resulting lateness for work–is my preferred form of protest at having to leave home after so short a time.
4. Why, oh why, oh why-o…why did I ever leave Ohio?
5. I have yet to do my taxes. Not a smart or responsible thing, since the Man owes me money. I blame this on the congressional grind as well: if it’s not due in the next four hours, keep it off my plate.
6. There is no sixth item on this Random Nonsense list.
7. Why did I wander to find what lies yonder, when lif e was so cozy at home?
8. The national anthem of the Netherlands is also impressive.
9. I end up reading Exodus about once a year, for whatever reason, but can’t get my head wrapped around the Tabernacle construction just from the reading. I have to look at a picture while I’m reading. The Tabernacle construction bit is one of the most confusing parts of the Old Testament to me.
10. That, and “Nimrod was a mighty hunter before the Lord–therefore it is said: ‘Like Nimrod, a mighty hunter before the Lord.’” I take it that “Like Nimrod, a mighty hunter before the Lord” was a popular expression back in the day, and one day someone asked, “Hey–where did that expression come from, anyway?” and someone else answered, “Well, there was this guy named Nimrod, and he was a mighty hunter before the Lord. And that’s where that comes from.”
11. Wond’rin’ why I wander–why did I fly, why did I roam?
12. That Nimrod bit was funnier in my head.
13. It was funny back in college.
14. It was funny in the same way that Tony Trabert was funny one day in his U.S. Open coverage, when he helpfully explained that “if your opponent is serving and you break his serve, you’re said to have broken his serve.”
15. “Bruce Sutter has been around for a while, and he’s pretty old. He’s 35 years old. That will give you some idea of how old he is.”–Ron Fairly.
16. Oh why, oh why-o did I leave Ohio? Maybe I’d better go home.
When I survey the wondrous cross
On which the Prince of Glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.
Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast,
Save in the death of Christ my God!
All the vain things that charm me most,
I sacrifice them to His blood.
See from His head, His hands, His feet,
Sorrow and love flow mingled down!
Did e’er such love and sorrow meet,
Or thorns compose so rich a crown?
His dying crimson, like a robe,
Spreads o’er His body on the tree;
Then I am dead to all the globe,
And all the globe is dead to me.
Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.
–Isaac Watts, 1707