Cranky Large Medium reading, 11 March

Go away.

Will you go, please? Now is good. Any time is good, but now is especially good. Leaving me alone is good. Murdered by pirates is good. Oh, I suppose, aside from being here to grate on my last nerve, you actually want something from me. Ah, yes, the reading. As you wish (not that I truly love you). Here you are:

In adversity you are only spurred on, not that your energy actually gets you anywhere, since you lack direction other than "against any force". You are an ardent self-lover and a bitter enemy. Never half-way, you are totally disliked by those who know you.

Are you happy, now? Of course not. You are neither Buttercup nor Westley. In fact, you are probably closer to the fictional Vizzini, except the part where you're still sucking oxygen, while he, having not tasted the iocane, nevertheless joined these real people who, on this date in history, went to live in the land of is no more: Thutmose III, Elagabalus, William Rosecrans, James Beatty, Julio Garavito Armero, Alexander Fleming, Ulysses S. Grant IV, James Tobin, Eulogius of Cordoba, John Toland, Willard Richards, Hendrik Willem van Loon, John Wyndham, Erle Stanley Gardner, Donato Bramante, Benjamin West, Emilio de' Cavalieri, Giovanni Maria Nanino, Geraldine Farrar, Pierre Renoir, Richard Brooks, Joe Gladwin, Vince Edwards, Betty Hutton, Bernie "Boom Boom" Geoffrion, John Chapman, Ulysses F. Doubleday, Charles Sumner, Oscar Mayer, Ole Kirk Christiansen, Philo T. Farnsworth, Whitney Young, John J. McCloy, Slobodan Milošević,

and Sonny Terry.

The saints will march, but we'll not be in their number.
Happy birthday, anyway.