QOTD: What’s Your Favorite Sentence?

Japanese Teahouse at Rosecliff, a Newport, RI, mansion used in the filming of 1974's The Great Gatsby.
Chinese Tea House at Marble House, a Newport, RI, mansion used in the filming of 1974’s The Great Gatsby.

The American Scholar recently published a list of its editors’ picks for the “Ten Best Sentences.”  Fitzgerald took the first slot, with this sentence from The Great Gatsby: “Its vanished trees, the trees that had made way for Gatsby’s house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams; for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.” Continue reading →

The Wholly Unsatisfying Ending to How I Met Your Mother

799px-How_I_Met_Your_Mother_cast_(cropped)Confession: I was one of the brave souls (suckers?) who watched How I Met Your Mother nearly all the way through its 9 season run. Admittedly, there were times during the near train-wreck Season 8 and again during the Season 9’s longest-wedding-weekend-ever storyline that I sincerely considered cutting bait.

Yet, like a committed partner in a yo-yo relationship, I stayed right through Monday’s much-beloved/much-hated finale, and have spent the last day-and-a-half trying to figure out what I actually think about the way Craig Thomas and Carter Bays ultimately decided to end the series.

A few thoughts: Continue reading →

I Am Not Your Lawyer

I knew it was going to happen.

The minute a lawyer passes the bar exam, she becomes, in the eyes of her family members, a veritable Walking Encyclopedia of The Law, ready and willing to answer all legal questions and come forth with Legal Knowledge™ at the drop of the hat.
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Is a Duggar Girl About to Be Released into the Wild?

If you’ve watched 19 Kids and Counting over the past several years, you’ve probably noticed there are several daughters that are in the midst of the fundamentalist marrying years. Some are even getting a bit on the old side, frankly. I hear rumors that Jana is 24 and she’s going to have to concentrate hard on breeding to get a mere 12 children. She’ll never catch up to her mom’s 19 children. The daughters are busy raising the younger children so mom and dad can go on speaking tours around the country so they’re plenty busy, but what about the girls’ uteruses (uteri?) Continue reading →