He'd always thought the phrasal verb "to bargain against ones self" with its negative connotation was sort of silly because who better to bargain against than someone with the same values and with the same longterm commitment to spaniels.

My Desires In The Event That I Should Be Incapacitated

I wish to be resuscitated, intubated, rehabilitated, preserved by artificial means, preserved by natural means, preserved by preservatives, if you need to, you should take me home and feed me something home-cooked, perhaps you ought to give me a bath too and one of those study pillows so you could prop me up and maybe even pretend that it's me who's saying the witty things you say in my voice which are incisive though always discreet and maybe also give me money too.

Get to Know a Historical Figure: Charles Sumner

Charles Sumner (January 6, 1811 – March 11, 1874) was an American politician and statesman. An academic lawyer and a powerful orator, Sumner decried the "crime against Kansas" and was almost immediately severely beaten by Representative Preston Brooks on the floor of the United States Senate.

The top of the world; the highest point within 100 miles of Iowa City, Iowa; where, it's said, the sky is revealed to be but a lens giving out on to other floating worlds. Still Madge couldn't shake the thought that despite not having had cheese in years there was quite clearly a cheese stain on her shirt.

The Principle

There are certain thoughts which one can merely think and they will never be the same. These thoughts are all around us like nourishing banana clusters. There are a finite number of these thoughts. Think them all and you will be as wise as the four winds or the three flavors (sweet, salty, salty-sweet) or those two guys in the back. However, each of us has a unique order – with slight variation permitted – in which we must think these thought or risk schizoid embolism. The stakes are high indeed. But without thinking any of these thoughts you risk collapse into the merest carnality: rampant sex without attachment, lust without devotion, having more pie without thinking about your one fat leg. The process of this principle is additionally complicated by the fact that the mark of many, but not all, of these thoughts is that it will be forgotten almost as soon as it’s thought. This is all made even more complicated by the existence of the “flouters” or “octogenarians” or “malamutes” whose role it is to try to rename the thoughts as hokum base and banal – never you worry about that mallet they’ll implore you. One may ask: if the very thinking of the thought will render me changed-forever how come I’ll forget it once I’ve thought it? But there is no simple answer to that question; no simpler anyway than to a question like how many plums is all of them plums? But the question serves to point up yet another danger: simply thinking one of the thoughts then forgetting it then thinking it again. Subsequent repetitions of the same thought will not have the same effect though there will be a slight yet gratifying tingle which for some is all the vindication they need. Those types find a life spent do-see-do-ing through the same thought rewarding. These people may set up huge temples to coax others to do their little fever dance but in the end they will meet violent ends as the axis on which they spin crumbles under the toiling mass of their bottom-heavy convictions heaving like a bag pipe even just walking down to the corner. One may think this terrain unnavigable, this game intractable, but this should not counsel resignation which would be met with foul language and insinuation about the city of your birth. Indeed, the road is long and not really even a road as much as a parkway or thoroughfare but perhaps I’ve already said too much; though I will conclude by noting that if you should ever have the thought why all these flowing robes? why so much pepper? you’re doing it wrong.

Walthingham

He was not a fat man; nor was he a particularly skinny man. He was likewise neither rich nor poor. And so he bore no mark of, or ready explanation for, the uncommon and unrelenting fervor with which he pursued food of any quality, at any time, and by any means. His methods ranged from simple footraces towards the food source to more cunning ruses - bait-and-switch, rope-a-dope, follow-the-birdy, breathe-very-deeply, lookout-for-that-bear and three-card-monty - usually called for when he’d lost the race or when other factors conspired to see another possessed of the food before him, such as the restaurant industry. Nothing in his past told of any period of deprivation and so theories of compensation were of no greater merit than those which posited some sort of inner emptiness as he was a particularly joyful person. Except, that is, for whenever food was present or presented shades of its own possibility at which times an assiduity overtook him as if the existence of his race depended on his immediate attention and inexorable determination. Yet it was this very singular will which arguably prevented such a peculiar proclivity from ever proceeding to the detriment of his reputation or social station. People were often taken aback by such wanton displays as him hiding with a Christmas ham or pouncing on a pile of pulled pork spotted from afar yet whatever alarm initially dawned in those in witness invariably gave way to a sort of admiration for, and inspiration by, the profound purpose which propelled him from one now-ravaged salad bar to the bus pan scraps just behind those always-swinging doors. And all agreed that he was indeed an estimable sort.

And they watched and wondered if it was right to prefer the night to the day; if it was wrong to see themselves as little more than the nameless black that the nightlit sky dressed them in; if the fireworks would possibly speed the drying of their pants.

Alfred J. Glouchester couldn't say how he had come to this particularly privileged place. He lived his life according to a few separate principles which collectively led him to think the merest impulses were imbued with the meaning and majesty of the divine that lies within us all. To the outside world it seemed he merely favored large women with large breasts.