Decorum

I've seen several stories lately regarding breaches of decorum in the US Congress.  Decorum--I know about this!  It's where you and your spouse both pretend that you care about what color you paint the kitchen.  It might sound unimportant, but maintaining decorum turns out to be essential for the preservation of all kinds of  civilized institutions.  And marriage as well.

OK, that one sounded pretty stale and not at all funny.   Unfortunately, there's a demon of bad jokes who sets traps for unwary bloggers.  He's in the same union as the better known imp of the perverse, but this guy pulls in a lot more work.  I'm working on a few serious essays, none of them finished enough to post yet.  In the meantime, I hope to keep this thing going while steering clear of that cursed demon.


Here's a quote from Jane Smiley's novella The Age Of Grief, whose first person protagonist, a dentist with three daughters whose marriage is in jeopardy, is one of the great characters in modern fiction:

'When I used to think of the word "confusion," I would think of a kind of gray mist, but that is not what confusion is. Confusion is perfect sight and perfect mystery at the same time. Confusion is seeing without knowing, as if the optic nerves were still attached but the hemispheres of the brain were parted. Desire is confusion vibrating in the tissues.'