Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Curabitur sagittis tincidunt porttitor. Aenean viverra tellus eu risus lacinia, eget elementum ante rutrum. Aliquam pharetra, dolor non laoreet dignissim, quam orci rhoncus nunc, non viverra quam elit eget dolor. Phasellus a erat quis lectus facilisis suscipit a eget elit. Nunc id pulvinar mauris. Mauris gravida risus ac tristique pretium. Fusce vel lorem ut purus vestibulum finibus id eget arcu. Aliquam lobortis luctus nisl ut finibus.
Maecenas dignissim, nulla eget luctus porta, mauris turpis feugiat orci, porta placerat urna diam a tellus. Aliquam consequat orci a ipsum dignissim mollis. Morbi a lobortis sapien, sit amet volutpat odio. Morbi eget felis velit. Pellentesque mattis venenatis magna. Praesent id gravida dui, at interdum nunc. Vivamus non turpis sed turpis pellentesque lobortis nec ut libero. [Read more…]
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Suspendisse suscipit efficitur mauris, vel pharetra dui ultrices vitae. Aenean ut scelerisque velit, eu laoreet orci. Proin viverra efficitur consectetur. Morbi convallis dolor eu dui cursus venenatis et nec sem. Morbi ac velit nisi. Ut pellentesque ultricies pretium. Nam porttitor at nisl in finibus. Donec vitae ipsum auctor, fermentum eros eu, suscipit mauris. Mauris hendrerit sapien ut tellus euismod, ut varius turpis interdum. Nam ultricies lectus sed convallis varius. Nulla sed purus gravida, dictum diam id, aliquet ex. Suspendisse mollis nulla eget cursus feugiat. Nullam fermentum est ac risus aliquam, et rhoncus est sagittis. In vel mi eget augue convallis scelerisque id quis risus. Integer ultricies est ut est hendrerit, sit amet convallis velit placerat. Nulla elementum maximus vestibulum.
The invention of the smartphone has generated at least 300,000 jobs in America. These are good jobs that can’t be offshored and provide a good living for our citizens. The top categories of smartphone-created jobs include:
Things unrelated to sex that make me think about sex:
-Coconuts
-Gel cap medicines
-Soda bottles
-Two right side up triangles or one upside down triangle.
-Circles
-The number 8
-The infinity symbol
-The letter Q
-Noodles (all varieties)
-The word “bisects”
-“Waiting for Godot”
-Belt buckles
-Elevator buttons
-Blowfish
-Those new chip credit cards
When I ride my bike this time of year, the cherry blossom petals on the tarmac at first look just like shards of glass, and I keep jerking to avoid them.
President Trump loves to play golf. He’s spent more time on the course than any other president at this point in his first term. The question is why. Understanding a man’s loves tells you something he’d probably rather you didn’t know.
Golf could be beautiful. A walk through swathes of green, extending for miles, like a recreation of the fields and meadows sung about by poets when poets still knew how to play the lute. The game itself adds a point of concentration within the ungovernable elements, an intermittent narrowing of awareness to how to align all the force one can muster toward a quick impact. There’s a joy in perfecting such a skill, no matter how inconsequential.
But look at how golf is actually played by Trump. He rides carts over unnatural carpets of green. The course starts and ends at an over-built clubhouse, weighed down with guilt ornations, over-dense foods, and a bar stocked with unlimited flavors of denial, where the object is to bury all questions in the ends of wealth. The men scattered over the lawn whacking little white balls back and forth have wagered on the results of each shot, as if letting an experience pass without monetary measure would frighten them. The holes are hemmed in by condos, architectural leeches sucking from a supine body.
Perhaps this is what Trump loves about golf—the extraction of wealth from what otherwise could be a pleasant pastime. We note that he seems to prefer to visit courses he owns—no doubt because they are the best, but also possibly because he luxuriates in the throb as money courses, as if out of the sky, the trees, and the grass, toward his bank account.
President T. Roosevelt used to compel guests to join him on miles long rambles through Rock Creek Park. President Trump chose to coast in a golf cart rather than walk alongside others for 700 meters.
Teddy Roosevelt decided not to send his daughter as his representative to a European coronation when someone pointed out that that might look a tad monarchical, which used to be considered unAmerican.
Lois put a bulb in the cold ground and then pulled her fingers out of the hole. She wasn’t sure how many more she could manage. The sun was resting on the horizon, and she’d have to be inside before Henry got home.
“Oh, my god, Lois. Are you—?”
Lois was occupied watching her own hand move to the trowel handle and angle it so that the tip pointed into the grass.
“Oh, my god! Lois, Lois, is this it?!”
Lois heard the startled and frightened voice, but she didn’t want to be kept from getting the next bulb in. It really might be her last.
She waved the hand with the trowel to brush the intrusion away.
“Oh, my god! Oh, my god! I’ve never seen someone dying.”
Lois realized she was splayed out on the grass, legs flat, torso propped up on one elbow. She’d come to this unusual, and evidently distressing-to-view, position through a slow progression, as she’d moved along her row. It was hard for her to shift all her weight at once, so, as she kept reaching to plant one more bulb and one more, she’d leaned out farther and farther until she was prostrate.
Now she looked up at Allison in her plaid scarf and bug-eye sunglasses, leaning over but, thank goodness, too scared to touch Lois.
“Not yet,” Lois said. “You’ll have to come back in a week or so for that show.”
“I’m so sorry. I thought in your condition…”
“My physician said he always prescribes horticulture.”
Lois looked at her trowel again. Its tip had penetrated the thick layer of intermeshed grass roots, and she could start prying that up now.
Allison shuffled and squatted, so that she came into Lois’s line of vision.
“Let me help you,” Allison said with the assurance of the capable.
“No. Enjoy the rest of your walk.”
With a few prying scratches, each costing her an effort, Lois made the hole deep enough. She reached into her vest pocket and wrapped her fingers around the next paper-skinned and involuted bulb. She laid it to rest.
“But what are you doing? It’s getting cold out.”
“Planting bulbs. I’ll be fine. Really, you go on.”
“Can you get back into the house okay?”
“Yes. Yes. Go.”
“You’re sure? All right. Take care of yourself.”
Lois saw the cushioned sneakers stride purposefully away. Then she thought of something that made her panic: at the memorial service, Allison would say something like, “The last time I saw Lois she was lying in the yard planting bulbs.” She’d ruin everything.
“Wait, Allison!” Lois called, her breath suddenly feeling meager, almost parceled out. She thought her voice wouldn’t be loud enough, but then Allison turned. “Don’t tell him about this. Don’t ever tell him,” Lois cried.
Allison looked confused but nodded and waved.
It had become her favorite thought—the one she lay down with and held before sleep, the one she summoned and admired when pain or fear became too insistent. One morning in the spring, he would wake up in the quiet house—no coffee dripping into the pot, no raspy slippers crossing the floor, no whisper of the newspaper being turned. But then he’d look outside, and he’d see the first yellow buds pushing up where she’d planned them, and she’d make him smile one more time.
