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.