I make no apologies.

I came upon this little bit of whimsy among my writings, and thought it might be fun to insert it here, since I have no particularly urgent thoughts to send forth into the world. I wrote it for my writing class and read it with some gusto, I remember.

I make no apologies for what I will shortly read here. The purpose of my reading this is to astonish, confound, outrage and indeed befuddle the listener. Better scholars than I have pondered the murky and Byzantine words I will reveal to you and have come to the conclusion that there is no conclusion. So I will read.

“ I am always feeling each kind of them as a substance darker, lighter, thinner, thicker, muddier, clearer, smoother, lumpier, granulater, mixeder, simpler, like every kind there is of earth or of anything and always I am feeling in each one of them their kind of stuff as much in them, as little in them, as all of a piece in them, as lumps in them held together sometimes by parts of the same sometimes by other kinds of stuff in them . . . . . . . . . some are always whole though the being in them is all a mushy mass with a skin to hold them in and so make one.”

Great writing? It made the author famous and wealthy, and has perhaps never been completely read by anyone. I refer to the novel (?) “The Making of Americans” by Gertrude Stein. If she could do it, so can we! Go, fellow writers, go!

And so I remain, happier, sadder, kinder, meaner, gooder, badder, smarter, dumber, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

I flung this little missile forth, partly as a rebuke to our most sincere teacher, who earnestly wanted us to imbue our writings with more emotion. We try, Scott, we try. Being staid, self-contained Senior Citizen types, we do the best we can.