evergleam

I gave great advice, too. I said, "My uncle Alex Vonnegut, a Harvard educated life insurance salesman who lived at 5033 Pennsylvania Street, taught me something very important. He said when things were really going well we should be sure to notice it.

"He was talking about simple occasions, not great victories: maybe drinking lemonade on a hot afternoon in the shade, or smelling the aroma of a nearby bakery, or fishing and not caring if we catch anything or not, or hearing somebody all alone playing a piano really well in the house next door.

"Uncle Alex urged me to say this out loud during such epiphanies: 'If this isn't nice, what is?'"

-- Timequake



If you really want to hurt your parents, and you don't have the nerve to be gay, the least you can do is go into the arts. I'm not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.

-- A Man Without a Country


It's strange to live in a world where Kurt Vonnegut doesn't. So it goes.