People of my Internet, if you do not come up with something better and more of it, I am going to be forced to go "run" on my treadmill, and believe me, I am not in the mood.
So now you're asking, well, what have you done for us lately? Fair enough, a little quid pro quo may be in order. What might I have for you? Hmm. This morning, I was moved to tears by a bit of Paradise Lost. I was full of fine thoughts all the way to work as a result. I could tell you which passage did the trick, but I think it will be more fun for you to guess. Don't you? That way you can go read it yourself! I'll see you back here in, let's say, April? (You wanted occupation, you got it).
I am reading PL in a copy of Milton's Collected Works that was printed in Boston in 1850. I got the book for a few dollars at a library sale a couple of years ago. It has leather covers, tiny type, and lovely, brown spotted, high cotton content paper. There are a few engravings to enliven things. Here's one.
Three different owners names written with fountain pen on the fly leaf. (Not mine, yet). It seems the right way to read Milton. I dip in for a few verses here and there thinking that every line contains at least one excellent book title. I read it out loud to myself. It's like a spell.
I was also very pleased with myself on the evening that I realized that Milton was the Proto and the Ultra Fan Fiction writer, using all God's main characters and filling in their back stories and all the missing bits from the entire story of Creation. I say ridiculous things (I think them more than I say them) about how grateful I am for the birthright of the English language but I mean it. I really mean it.
All right. I made some green tea that I forgot about while I stopped in here. Tea and treadmill it is, unless one of you has posted something great on FB or one of the blogs I follow. Well? What are you waiting for? I have obviously held up my end.
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