Cranky Large Medium reading, 19 July

Go away.

Why are you here? Don't you have a bridge somewhere to jump off? Go on, now, skedaddle. Why won't you go? What is it about my mountain that keeps you on top of it? Oh, right, you came here for something in particular, and that was... heh, a medium should be able to grass this one easily. Let me see, now... of course, you came for what's inside my head. Well, let me pour it out, so you'll be gone. Here you are:

You have a vivid imagination, not especially practical in most circumstances. Along with that, though, you have boundless energy and ruthless ambition. With all of that, you can't figure out why people don't like you very much. That's why it's good that you like to travel, to get away.

Are you happy, now? Of course not. But then, with your imagination, you should be able to find the positive side to this -- that is, you're still alive to complain about it. That puts you far ahead of these people, all of whom, on this date in history, became figments themselves: Uda, Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Soji Okita, Zenko Suzuki, Pierre Louis Dulong, Pope Symmachus, Cesare Cremonini, Abraham H. Cannon, Bill Bright, Reverend Francis Marzen, Petrarch, William Somervile, Margaret Fuller, Rose Hartwick Thorpe, Edward Bunker, Alan Lomax, Joe Flynn, John Harvey, Eddie Quillan, Jack Warden, Elmer Valo, Lady Mary Boleyn, Sarah Good, Susannah Martin, Yekaterina Budanova,

and Lefty Frizzell.

Now you're up here on the mountain and...where's your daughter's beau?
Happy birthday, anyway.

Cranky Large Medium reading, 18 July

Go away.

Why are you still here? Why won't you go? Why do you torment me so? Why is the sky blue, the grass green? Is there something I can do to make these questions go away? Oh, right, I can give you a reading, and all will become right with the world, and then you will leave. Isn't that so? Goody gum drops. Here you go:

You are, like a cat, obsessively fastidious. In fact, you are quite the dandy, a complete fop. You do study art and fashion as though your life depended upon that. It probably does. Your temper is quick. That's about the only part of your mind which is.

Are you happy, now? Of course not. But that doesn't matter. At least by the end of this sentence your little temper tantrum will be over, and you'll be able to look at the bright side of things, as in, you're alive. That beats what these people have, as, on this date in history, they all checked their matter at the door: John Paul Jones, Robert Gould Shaw, Benito Juárez, William Westmoreland, Kenji Miyamoto, Ferdinand von Hochstetter, Karl Menninger, Eugene Merle Shoemaker, Victor Emery, Muhammad bin Qasim, Godfrey of Bouillon, Johann Heinrich Heidegger, Jane Austen, Horatio Alger, Jr., Benjamin C. Truman, Julian Bell, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Antoine Watteau, Vítězslav Novák, Jerry Hadley, Jack Earle, Jack Hawkins, Rebecca Schaeffer, Donnie Moore, Bill Hicke, Machine Gun Kelly, Mary Jo Kopechne,

and Bobby Fuller.

I fought gravity. Gravity won. Good night.
Happy birthday, anyway.

Cranky Large Medium reading, 17 July

Go away.

What are you doing still standing there? Isn't the bus waiting for you? Well, go on, get to it! It will leave without you, and then you'll have to sleep out on the side of the hill, because... well, let's face it, I'm not sharing my cave with you, no matter how hard you beg. So, go on. And still you're here. What will it take for me to be rid of you? Oh, right, you want a reading. And then you'll happily leave? Boy howdy, that's a bargain! Here you are:

You are a regular MacGyver, aren't you? Even so, you spend far too much time decorating your home, so people will eventually talk.... Oh, and you're a past master at talk -- your conversational skills impress the State Department. By your kindly manner, you will irritate most of us who will eventually realize that, deep down, you're lacking in confidence just like the rest of us, but you're better at hiding it than most.

Are you happy, now? Of course not. You're quaking in your boots at the prospect of being found out. Still, you have things so much better than these people, all of whom, on this date, were taken to Boot Hill: Hosokawa Takakuni, Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey, Dorothea Dix, Nicholas II, Adam Smith, John Roebuck, Henri Poincaré, William James Sidis, Boris Delaunay, Magnus Felix Ennodius, Georg Fabricius, Katharine Graham, Mickey Spillane, Maurycy Gottlieb, Sinan, John Coltrane, Chas Chandler, Yujiro Ishihara, Pat Roach, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Ty Cobb, Dizzy Dean, Pierre-Charles Le Sueur, Robert Bolling, Charlotte Corday, Jim Bridger, Alexandra Fyodorovna,

and Eleanora Fagan aka Billie Holiday.

My tea is a-brewin, so you'd best go.
Happy birthday, anyway.

Cranky Large Medium reading, 16 July

Go away.

Why are you still here? Don't you have somewhere better to be, something responsible to do, someone less... me to bother? Go on, now. You can skip off this mountainside easily, right? Let me see the back of you. I'm pretty sure the back of you lacks that great honkin' schnozz. Turn it around, now.... why aren't you gone? You came here for something. Right. I didn't see that coming, did I, now? And the something would be... a reading. Quel shocka! Well, if that's what it takes to make you go, I can get behind it. Here you are:

Dang, you are stubborn! Your very definite and exceedingly narrow ideas of right and wrong are emphatic and you cannot tolerate the slightest deviation from them in others. In your passion for correctness, you wind up little more than a sanctimonious bully.

Are you happy, now? Of course not. But then, with your back as rigid as it is, I can't imagine you would be happy under any circumstances. Hey, at least you can say I pointed out the one advantage you have in this life -- that would be this life. It's way more than these people have, as each and every one of them, on this date in history, got patted on the back by the grim reaper: Emperor Go-Uda, Raoul Wallenberg*, Ilya Mechnikov, Julian Schwinger, John Cocke, Anne Askew, John Pearson, Ellen White, Ned Buntline, Hilaire Belloc, John P. Marquand, Heinrich Böll, May Sarton, Giuseppe Maria Crespi, Francis Cotes, Robert Motherwell, Johann David Heinichen, Alfred Deller, Wayne King, Herbert von Karajan, John Panozzo, Jo Stafford, Buck Buchanan, Anne of Cleves, Thomas "Tad" Lincoln, Mary Todd Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, Jr., Carolyn Bessette Kennedy,

and Harry Chapin.

Now you can start down the hill... preferably without bananas.
Happy birthday, anyway.

*date and year disputed, but viewed as "official" by government of USSR.

Cranky Large Medium reading, 15 July

Go away.

Please, won't you leave? I'm practically begging you. What will it take to make you go? Money? I have none. Power? I have none. Charm? I have none. Sex? Trust me. You don't want to go there. So, how can I persuade you to take to the highway? You'll go if I give you a reading? What a novel approach. I think I can arrange that. In fact, get packed -- here you are:

Inclined towards fretting and worrying, you mean well but irritate. If you could stop gnawing your fingernails, you might actually find are actually fond of fun. You have an active imagination, an offshoot of which is your perception that you are psychic. Just because you can predict elections in Chicago does not mean you can actually see the future. That's just politics.

Are you happy now? Of course not. But you ought to be. After all, you're well ahead of these people, all of whom, on this date, were taken to a place where politics can't reach them (unless they're from Chicago, in which case they will forever after vote Democrat): Rudolph I of Germany, Ulrich von Jungingen, Shimazu Takahisa, John J. Pershing, Hermann Emil Fischer, Bonaventure, John Ball, Michael Bruce, Anton Chekhov, Annibale Carracci, Girolamo Rainaldi, Charles-André van Loo, Jean Antoine Houdon, Jacques Duphly, Carl Czerny, Freddie Keppard, Walter Donaldson, Bert Convy, David Brian, Margaret Lockwood, Dana Hill, Billy Haughton, Tex Schramm, Juan Ponce de León, James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth, Robert Pershing Wadlow, Julia Lennon, Gianni Versace, Robert H. Brooks,

and Lawrence Tibbett.

Now. You. On the road to anywhere.
Happy birthday, anyway.

Cranky Large Medium reading, 14 July

Go away.

Why won't you leave? Is your proximity to me so necessary in your life? Tell me I am your life, your love, your world... you're in need of psychiatric assistance. Oh, you're not here for my love, just my answers. You want a reading. As if I couldn't have gathered that from the way you stood there gaping. Well, if that's all it will take to get you to leave me alone again, what am I waiting for? Here you are:

With your rigidity and stuffiness, you cannot tolerate or understand anything different in others. You are so wrapped up in your fantasies that you would probably perish miserably if one of your ideals were shattered. In order to be happy, you must have the full understanding of your mate. Sadly, full understanding is what would drive a mate away.

Are you happy, now? Of course not. You, with the corn cob in the inconvenient location, can not see the good in my words. Look on it this way, though -- at least you're able to be disappointed. That's a lot better than these people have it, as, on this date in history, they all turned erasing mathematicians, and began to dis-integrate: Edmond Charles Genêt, Adlai Stevenson, Carl Spaatz, Augustin-Jean Fresnel, William Henry Perkin, Richard Taverner, Camillus de Lellis, August Neander, Claude Fleury, Richard Bentley, Anne Louise Germaine de Staël, Jacinto Benavente, František Maxmilián Kaňka, Thomas Hazlehurst, Alphonse Mucha, Julie Manet, Jackie Saunders, Meredith MacRae, Pancho Villa, Bernard-René de Launay, Henry McCarty a.k.a. William H. Bonney a.k.a. Billy the Kid, Quentin Roosevelt, Frank Bell, Richard McDonald,

and Joe Harnell.

Please, don't make me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry.
Happy birthday, anyway.

Cranky Large Medium reading, 13 July

Go away.

Why won't you get out? Is there some siren song calling you to this place, that you can't pull yourself away? Why aren't you leaving? Ah, you came for something particular, did you? And that something is... a reading, of course. And, if I give it to you, you will leave? Great! Great! Then here you are:

You make decisions quickly and act impulsively. You are energetic and aggressive ; your face is often stuck in a book and ambitious for people to perceive you as an intellectual -- too bad you can't seem to learn anything while in those books.

Are you happy, now? Of course not. But, hey, at least you can't complain about your reading -- it says you have a life, which surely beats what these people have, as, on this date in history, they all answered the call from beyond: Jianwen, Edward Braddock, Conrad Weiser, Tokugawa Ieshige, John C. Frémont, James Bradley, Friedrich August Kekulé von Stradonitz, Gabriel Lippmann, Pope John III, Pope Leo VII, Hubert Walter, Robert Hamerling, Peter Parler, Alfred Stieglitz, Frida Kahlo, Arnold Schoenberg, Pandro S. Berman, Willy Fritsch, Red Buttons, Tom Simpson, Davey Allison, Michael Reardon, Robert Shirley, Titus Oates, Jean-Paul Marat, Henry Benedict Stuart, Johnny Ringo,

and Compay Segundo.

I cultivate thistles and nettles.
Happy birthday, anyway.

Cranky Large Medium reading, 12 July

Go away.

Will you get out? How do I warrant this cruel treatment? What did I do to deserve you coming up my path and pestering me, interrupting my peaceful plans for self-immolation? Why, why, why do you interrupt my life in this way? Oh, of course, you came here for a reading. As if I couldn't see that one coming from a mile away. Well, if I give you this reading, you will leave, correct? Then, here you are:

You have unlimited ability. You would find success in anything you undertook if you applied all your efforts faithfully. Too bad you haven't bothered to download any applications. You are self-righteous, fussy, and seek, unsuccessfully, a harmonious life with pleasant surroundings.

Are you happy, now? Of course not. But at least you can say you still have unlimited ability. That beats what these people have, as all of them, on this date in history, could no longer even play dead: Ashikaga Yoshinori, Richard Cromwell, Alexander Hamilton, Dolley Madison, Jean (not Jean-Luc) Picard, Charles Stewart Rolls, Boris Galerkin, Erasmus, Nathan Söderblom, Ole Evinrude, Tony Snow, Johann Joachim Quantz, Jimmie Lunceford, Roger Wolfe Kahn, Chris Wood, Jonathan Melvoin, Jimmy Driftwood, Benny Carter, Lon Chaney, Jr., Bill Owen, Bobby Murcer, Gertrude Bell, Alfred Dreyfus, Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., Wolfram von Richthofen, Elsie de Wolfe, John Chancellor,

and Minnie Riperton.

No one else can make me feel colors? Hmmm.
Happy birthday, anyway.

Cranky Large Medium reading, 11 July

Go away.

When will you get out of here? Is already too soon for you? Yesterday, maybe? All right, then, lets try right now. And yet you do not go. I suppose this means I will have to bribe you with my voluptuous body in order to sway you to be on your way? No? So, what's wrong? You don't find me attractive, maybe? Oh, it's not me, it's you... boy, if I had a nickel for every time I heard that, I'd have... at least a nickel. So, what will it take to persuade you to leave? Ah, yes, the reading. And, if I give it to you, you will be happy and go, correct? Lovely. Allow me to pack your bag. Here you are:

Yours is a sunny and radiant disposition and your charming personality is truly annoying to most of us. You have immense self-control -- or is it just that you find it easy to distance yourself from everything important? You like pleasant surroundings and can make a cactus seem inviting. That's really irksome. Cut it out, right now, before somebody decides to pop you upside the head.

Are you happy, now? Of course not. You're just bubble-headedly sunny. Happy would require connection to reality. Well, at least so long as you're as chirpy as this, you're miles ahead of these people, all of whom, on this date in history, flew this mortal nest: Anthemius, Amalric I, James Smith, Simon Newcomb, Gary Kildall, Michael DeBakey, Robert Runcie, William Chamberlayne, Delmore Schwartz, John W. Campbell, Ross Macdonald, George Gershwin, James Murray, Laurence Olivier, Don Starr, Frances Langford, Shinya Hashimoto, Claudia "Lady Bird" Johnson,

and Helen Forrest.

In the still of the might, once again I send you away.
Happy birthday, anyway.

Cranky Large Medium reading, 10 July

Go away.

Will you get out of here? What is it that keeps you from up and leaving? Is there some arcane force binding you to the spot? Why are you here, anyway? Oh, naturally, you came here for something particular, and... allow me to use the simple powers of deduction, please. I have nothing of worth in my abode, and I am a medium. So, you must be here to ask me to your prom. No? Well, then, what do you want? Silly me, I should have known you wanted a reading. And, if I give you one, you'll just up and return whence you came? Wunnnerful, wunnerful, wunnerful. Here you are:

You are a regular mouse, and could use some serious lessons in self-confidence. You're really great at following orders, but have no courage in your own initiatives. Probably just as well, considering what a general bag of mush you are, emotionally.

Are you happy, now? Of course not. But, if you ever develop the nerve to think about it on your own, you may discover that your meek life is better than what these people have, as, on this date in history, they all stopped saying "no." They also stopped saying "yes", "maybe", or anything else, for that matter: Hadrian, Li Shimin, El Cid, William I of Orange, Louis-Jacques Daguerre, John Fell, Richard Peters, Gabriel Naudé, Louis Moréri, Doug Marlette, George Stubbs, Georg Hermann Nicolai, Joseph Krumgold, Sam Rolfe, Phoebe Knapp, Jelly Roll Morton, Lovie Austin, Arthur Fiedler, Justin Pierce, Freddy Soto, Paul Morphy, Joe Giard, Joe Davis, Calogero Vizzini, John D Rockefeller III, Hartley Shawcross, Hiroaki Aoki,

and Mel Blanc.

What's up, Doc?
Happy birthday, anyway.