A couple who look like they’ve been together for a very long time sit in a waiting room at the Western Hospital. The man looks anxious and uncomfortable, maybe even angry, and his wife will not intrude upon that. Holding her purse primly– like she was in church– she sits with her knees together staring straight ahead. She will not say a word. She will not move a muscle. They don’t look at one another. The tension in their lives a living thing, a creature that travels great distances and will not go away.
And in the foyer there is a Book and Bake sale taking place. A very skinny woman in a motorized wheelchair is looking at the cupcakes. She’s wearing a pink kerchief on her head, in honour of Valentine’s Day, and she is thumbing through a book called Rogue Angel.
All the donated books there. Books thumbed through on beach vacations, books that changed lives or passed right through them. All these stories moving through time, intersecting, and ultimately reducing to the same story: How will I live, how will I die? And at the kiosk beside, there is a long lineup for the Lotto 6/49. Doctors and patients alike. Pretty nurses are scrolling their phones as they wait, men in hospital gowns clutching IV stands, people visiting loved ones. Each person having a plan for the money, each one hoping for something–a candy apple red Corvette, a promising drug, some safe horizon. Past them and outside, through slush and snow I step into a taxi. I am tired and my oxygen tubing has caught on the door, and as I am trying to disentangle it, the sudden astonishment of a female driver speaking to me. Her accented voice from far away, the subtle trace of her perfume, like light falling on water.
]]>Valentine’s Day Press Briefing by White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer:
************************
Mr. Spicer: Good afternoon, everybody. Thanks for coming.
As some of the assembled press here might already know, but probably don’t, on account of being spineless merchants of ignorance and lies, is that today is Valentine’s Day.
Named after St. Valentine.
A Christian.
A Christian who was killed by Muslims.
I want those words to sit there for a moment and sink in.
No! No questions yet! We’re going to have a little time-out here and think about Muslims killing an an innocent Christian. A super Christian. The Tom Brady of Christians . That’s right, that’s how goddamn good Saint Valentine was, he was like Tom Brady.
And the Muslims killed him.
Do you know how he was killed?
Anyone?
No? Not one of you geniuses in the press corps has any idea? No, I didn’t think so.
Torture.
He was tortured to death.
Okay, moving on, I’d like to wish my lovely wife Rebecca a Happy Valentine’s Day– baby, you’re the light of my life! They say behind every great man is a great woman, and they’re right, they’re right, Rebecca.
However, the story dominating the news cycle today is the handshake between President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Jerry Trudeau of Canada.
Jerry Trudeau, as you could all see– it was plain as day– has smaller hands than President Trump. Much smaller. It was funny how small they were. The President firmly guided the direction, intensity and length of the handshake. He was in full control at all times. Additionally, Ivanka, a world-class beauty, is much more attractive than Sonja, the Prime Minister’s wife. Is she older than him? We will look into that, but I believe that Sonja is older than Trudeau. Sorry? What did you say, Kellyanne? I can’t hear you above the howling from the media cages! Okay, okay, got it. Sonja is 7 years older than the Prime Minister and has had work done. How much work we are not yet sure.
President Trump, as you all know, can get any woman on the planet, and certainly would never have to stoop to marrying a woman older than him.
Saturday Night Live continues to disgust.
There is no greater example of the corrupt and biased media than this treasonous show. For the record, I was never known as “Sean Sphincter” in high school. Nothing but malicious, mean-spirited lies. Our intelligence service has discovered that next week SNL were planning on having ISIS as their special guest.
Not on our watch.
The President takes the security of the American people very seriously, in fact it is his highest priority, and from this point forward all operations at Saturday Night Live and Nordstrom will be suspended indefinitely. They are welcome to operate out of Iraq and see how they like it there. Additionally, Playboy magazine will be bringing back nudity.
National Security Adviser Michael Flynn has retired in order to spend more time with his family. Here is the full statement from Michael Flynn.
“Working with Donald Trump has been the single greatest honour of my personal and professional life. Secure in the knowledge that the world is in his large, powerful hands, I regretfully tender my resignation, effective immediately, so that I can spend more time with my family.”
Before ending I just want to congratulate Adele for her victory over Beyonce at the Grammy’s.
Very well deserved. All lives matter, people, all lives matter.
Okay, that’s a wrap.
]]>