Meanwhile, Rome burns.

Oh, thank you, thank you!!! This was fabulous and no, Carol, you weren’t the only one dancing and singing. I loved this!!!

What a beautiful tribute,Frank, and how lucky you have been to have loved like that. People go through their whole lives without knowing that kind of joy. Your Anne was blessed to have found you and to think it all started with a great kiss.

Ah, Gee, guess I must not be in the Where-have-all-the -good-men gone group cuz a lot of the men I know and have known have been and are quite something. But then maybe Betsy isn’t talking about GOOD MEN, but the kind that can sweep you off your feet, charm you silly, beguile you with their smooth silver tongued words. YUK!!! I like solid men that stick and do a lot of work around the house, inside and out, and are there for you when nights are cold.

WHAT WOULD HAPPEN THEN A bird, bright and quick, blue with livid streaks, would arrive on the windowsill, as official harbinger, and then. The low would be raised up, the sneers crushed under their own bricks, the teeter-totter would cease to choose sides and sit in peaceful sway on its fulcrum. The kiss that had been held back all those years at last would release into the mouth in flood. And WHY NOT would replace all other dicta, but gently, as a sunlit nudge. –––April Bernard

Just finished reading the comments re: the question of a possible Hillary-Obama ticket and the comment made by Deni G asking Beverly Hills Starlet–––”Do you drink?” just made me hoot with laughter.

BEAUTY There she was on “Entertainment Tonight.” Someone had caught a glimpse of Bardot after all these years. Brigitte Bardot running through the trees, across a meadow, a dog running with her. The hair still long. Then another part, showing her on the patio, aged. (Sun-damaged, we say) The violation of beauty never happens just once. When my father heard that his beloved dog had chased and killed the rancher’s sheep, he went right out and shot it. Because, he said, once they ran with the pack and tasted blood it would never stop. ––Linda Gregg

When I was in fifth grade I desperately wanted breasts so one day I stuck into a training bra some bunched up handkerchiefs. At some point during class I looked down and in my horror saw that one of the bunches had traveled down to my waist. There I was displayed as a one breast wannabe. It’s difficult in this day and age to not be concerned about appearance since our culture puts so much emphasis on BEAUTY. Like Carol, I always wanted men to appreciate my mind rather than my looks and now that I am older I am free of that concern. I married a man 13 years my junior and that if nothing else keeps one on their toes. P.S. I did finally get breasts.

Yes, I thought Colbert’s parody very funny–––a laugh out loud funny. He’s really very clever and what a feat to take on a conservative persona when he’s obviously not.

Here’s a twist on the word “swine”––gender-wise: From the first lines of a letter Edna St. Vincent Millay sent to Edmond Wilson: “Am I a swine? Oh, but such a little one! such an elegant and distinguished one! So pink and white! A truffle-sniffer, not a trough-wallower!”

Such fun to look at all these photos. I don’t know who Helen O’Hagen is but if her picture isn’t concealing something she looks like someone you’d love to know and have good long talks with. What a beautiful face.

What, pray tell, is a “vacant immaturity”? With MY “breath of attitude” I give you what Joseph Addison (1672-1719) would and did say to all this:” Our disputants put me in mind of the scuttle fish, that when he is unable to extricate himself, blackens all the water about him, till he becomes invisible.”

I’m with da three of youse–Lily,–I’ll bring the gin and Frank can be the tonic , Philip, you bring lots of ice and we’ll party till all this blather beats the dust.

I think there are many women like me who admire Hillary, think she’s certainly qualified for the job, but think also at this time this country and perhaps the rest of the world needs Obama to bring a rallying cry of change. I keep remembering what JFK did for this country at that time in our history. We need that now.

Sean winked at his girl [daughter] on the bar stool in the middle of it all, the girl with long red hair, who was beaming at him, more in love with Sean Moran than her mother had ever been. from “This Human Season”–Louise Dean